The B-17 is one of the most famous aircraft used in the Second World War. It was known as the Flying Fortress. Or perhaps I should say the Flying FortressTM, for it was actually registered as a trademark by Boeing (well, Wikipedia says so, anyway). The phrase was supposedly coined by a journalist in an […]
The above drawing (click to enlarge), which appeared in the 3 May 1934 issue of Flight, depicts an ingenious bombing simulator manufactured by Vickers-Armstrongs — the Vickers-Bygrave Bombing Teacher. The basic idea is that an image of the area around a bomb target (which is printed on a glass plate) is projected onto the floor,
Part of a BBC broadcast by George Bernard Shaw, entitled ‘Whither Britain?’, 6 February 1934: Are we to be exterminated by fleets of bombing aeroplanes which will smash our water mains, cut our electric cables, turn our gas supplies into flame-throwers, and bathe us and our babies in liquid-mustard gas from which no masks can
Here in Australia, we’re just catching up on the last two series of Foyle’s War, a British detective drama which differs from the estimated 734 other British detective dramas in existence by being set in Sussex during the Second World War. This is a very large part of its charm (though due regard must be
And marble, and granite, and wood … I wrote recently that every town in Australia seems to have a war memorial. Here are some examples, photos I took over a three day period without going too far out of my way. This post is image-heavy, but everyone has broadband now don’t they?
A follow-on of sorts to a recent post. Imperial Airways was Britain’s main international airline between 1924 and 1939. It enjoyed semi-official status, as it was subsidised by the British government, and had the contract to deliver air mail throughout the Empire. Another international airline was formed in 1935, British Airways,1 which serviced European routes
This week, I was looking at the service records of some other family members who served in the world wars — those that have been digitised anyway — and as today is ‘Straya Day,1 it seems appropriate to write a little about them. Tags: bonza; strewth; grouse; sorry, ocker, the Fokker’s chocker. [↩]
This is my third post about maps out of the last four, so I’ve given in and made a Maps category. It’s not just me: there are another three posts about maps at Breathing History, and also at Philobiblon and My London Your London about an exhibition at the British Library about maps of London.
New Popular Edition Maps is an attempt to produce a copyright-free database of British postcodes. It does this by asking people to hunt around on a clickable, zoomable map of the UK for places for which they know the postcode (e.g. their home), and then enter that postcode at that spot. It’s a bit like
Anthony Eden at a United Nations Association rally at the Albert Hall, 1 March 1947: Mr. EDEN and M. JAN MASARYK, Czechoslovak Foreign Minister, were the other principal speakers. Of international affairs, Mr. EDEN said: “Our planet has become very small. We are nearer to San Francisco to-day than we were to Paris 100 years
