[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] Despite appearing in the Times Literary Supplement a month ago, Eric Naiman’s astounding exposure of independent historian A. D. Harvey’s fraudulent scholarship seems to have been little remarked upon by historians. (Naiman’s piece is quite long, but worth the read; for a much shorter version try here.) Admittedly, […]
John Ptak recently pinned a 1964 science fiction magazine cover depicting a ruined Statue of Liberty, predating the more famous ending of Planet of the Apes by four years. He wondered about earlier images along the same lines, and after a bit of digging I found not many at all. The above is the only
Yesterday’s post was, thankfully, the last entry in my post-blogging of the 1913 phantom airship wave. I’ve searched the available (to me) primary sources up until the end of April 1913 and can find no further references; and Watson, Oldroyd and Clarke’s exhaustive compilation of phantom airship sightings has only 7 entries from May onwards.
A rather belated mystery airship report appears in today’s Aberdeen Daily Journal (p. 4): It was reported a few days ago that on the evening of the 9th April [1913] an airship, steering north-west, was seen from the island of Stronsay, Orkney. Doubt was felt at the time as to the reliability of the report,
The Economist follows up last week’s third leading article about the airship scare with the fourth leading article today (an extract from which also appears in the Manchester Guardian). This time around the subject is ‘THE “DAILY MAIL’S” MANSION HOUSE MEETING FOR AIRSHIPS’ (925), which is planned for 5 May and will feature speeches by
The Manchester Guardian reports today on Germany’s naval aviation plans, as revealed in an official memorandum recently released to the public, which it judges to be ‘important as marking the first step from tentative experiments to a period of ordered growth’ (9). An ‘explanatory statement’ is likened to ‘the famous Introduction to the Navy Bill
The death last week of Margaret Thatcher was, naturally enough, the occasion of a plethora of reflections on her place in history. Equally naturally, the value of these reflections varies (and no doubt depends partly on the politics of both the writer and the reader). One of the less valuable ones was written by Dominic
The third leading article in today’s Economist is entitled ‘Airship fiascos and preliminary puffs’ (p. 868). It begins by casting back to ‘A FEW weeks ago, just before and after the Army and Navy Estimates were introduced’, when ‘a section of the Press was filled with lurid accounts of the danger in which Great Britain
A prominent headline on the front page of the Daily Express today rather startlingly refers to the ‘BOMBARDMENT OF LONDON’, a ‘NIGHT VISIT FROM A DIRIGIBLE’, and a ‘WAR LESSON’ (p. 1). It turns out that the capital has not been destroyed by a sudden Zeppelin raid; rather, Londoners are promised that tomorrow night an
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] I learned something new from an article in the March 2013 issue of History Today: Exactly half a century ago, in the spring of 1963, Israel was suddenly gripped by a curious mass panic. Sensational newspaper reports and radio announcements claimed that the country was threatened by enemy
