In May 1909, the three major organisations promoting aviation in Britain, the Aeronautical Society, the Aero Club, and the newly-formed Aerial League, announced that they would henceforth coordinate their efforts. The Aerial League would be recognised as ‘the paramount body for patriotic movements and for education’, the Aeronautical Society ‘the paramount scientific authority on aeronautical […]
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] I recently came across what appear to be two bad books from what are two good publishers. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that — these things happen, a lot of books get published on military history and they can’t all be good. But it turns out that the
I’ve updated my list of online British newspaper archives. This time, the new titles are: Aberdeen Journal AJR Information Catholic Herald Connacht Sentinel Cork Examiner Jewish Chronicle Irish Press Irish Times Kilkenny People Louth and North Lincolnshire Advertiser Nenagh News Northants Evening Telegraph The Post/Sunday Post (Dundee) Sligo Champion Sowerby Bridge News Many of these
So, to wrap up this accidental series. To check whether professional astronomical journals displayed the same patterns in discussing ‘Mars’ and ‘canals’ as the more popular/amateur ones I again looked at the peak decade 1891-1900, this time selecting only the more serious, respected journals. However, because of the French problem I had to exclude L’Astronomie
In my post about the lingering scientific interest in the Martian canals hypothesis after 1909, I said that there was a problem with journal coverage. What do I mean by this? Have a look: This is a repeat of the first plot in the previous post, showing the number of articles published in peer-reviewed astronomical
In a recent, hmm, let’s call it a discussion resulting from an old post I wrote about the US Air Force’s one-time interesting in mapping Mars, I tried to assess how scientific interest in the Martian canals hypothesis lingered after the early 20th century, and said I would run up some figures to illustrate the
There’s been a huge amount of interest on Twitter and in the media about the new Bomb Sight website, developed by the University of Portsmouth with assistance from the National Archives and elsewhere, and deservedly so because it’s fairly excellent. In short it’s an interactive map of the London Blitz compiled from a number of
Over at The Appendix, ‘a new journal of narrative & experimental history’ to which you can subscribe, Felipe Fernandes Cruz has reproduced some intriguing declassified US documents from the early 1940s concerning rumours of clandestine German airfields in Brazil. The reason for the US interest in any evidence of German activity in South America, apart
An update on the whole Millwall thing. Well, a teaser, anyway. I’ve had an email from Chris Going letting me know how his research into the Luftwaffe’s photoreconnaissance flights over Britain on the first day of the Blitz, 7 September 1940. Can’t say too much, but he did authorise me to say that ‘interesting things
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] The current conflict in Gaza has attracted much media attention for the so-called Twitter war being fought between the IDF and Hamas, or, more precisely, between the @IDFSpokesperson and @AlqassamBrigade accounts and their respective followers. Insults are traded back and forth, photos and videos of rocket attacks and
