Part of the methodology of the Mass-Observation project was the tracking of paranormal beliefs, perhaps a reflection of its anthropological inspiration. In War Begins at Home, published early in 1940 by Mass-Obs, the following article is reprinted from the December 1939 issue of Prediction (a magazine devoted to astrology, psychic powers and the like): ON […]
On the night of 16 February 1873, the Russian ironclad Kaskowiski slipped into Waitemata Harbour, off Auckland, the largest city in the British colony of New Zealand. She found a British warship at anchor, and sent a ‘submarine pinnace’ to disable its crew by means of a ‘mephitic water-gas’ so that their ship could be
From the Manchester Guardian, 29 September 1938, p. 6: We are hearing and reading so much (writes a correspondent) of people talking in the streets, in public vehicles, and wherever they meet about the international situation that perhaps “Miscellany” may care to preserve for posterity this perfectly true and unvarnished record of a conversation overheard
An illuminated tram-car which is touring Blackpool as a recruiting agent for the A.R.P. services.1 Every autumn in Blackpool, the promenade is festooned with miles of multicoloured lights — the ‘Blackpool Illuminations‘. Part of this display involves similarly-decorated trams — the ‘Blackpool illuminated trams‘. (Or so I read, I’ve obviously never been.) This particular example
The 14th Military History Carnival is up at Investigations of a Dog. It’s a big one! I direct readers’ attention particularly to a series of posts by Paul Brewer at The War Reading Room: here, here, here, here, here, and here. The subject is a new book by Nicholson Baker called Human Smoke: The Beginnings
Via Museum of Hoaxes, the Nazi air marker hoax — though it seems to me that it was not a hoax in the sense of a deliberate attempt to deceive, but rather an honest misinterpretation. And taking into account the role of the press in the story’s rise and fall, it looks a lot like
This year, because I don’t have enough to do I’ve joined the editorial collective of the Melbourne Historical Journal. Here’s the call for papers for Volume 36: Call for Papers Submissions Due: 1st June 2008 Published since 1961, Melbourne Historical Journal (MHJ) is a refereed journal for the publication of Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand
I’m currently looking at the air menace as portrayed in the press during the Sudeten crisis in late September-early October 1938. The interesting thing is that there isn’t much, at least not directly. There was very little scaremongering material of the type so prevalent in 1934-5, or even earlier in 1938, for example, even in
In late March and early April 1938, the Manchester Guardian ran a competition inviting readers to send in ‘a List, with short reasons, of Six Books with which to Furnish a Gas-proof Room’1 — that is, a room designed to provide a temporary refuge in a gas attack. The article which discussed the entries began
E. H. Carr in conversation with Collin Brooks, BBC Home Service, 30 September 1940: After 1919 we were always worrying about keeping up our naval supremacy. And, of course, we were right. But what did we do about the Air Force? Hardly anything. We just let it dwindle away. We thought air power of so
