[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] On 15 February 1915, the Winnipeg Evening Tribune‘s daily astrology column noted the unfavourable positions of Mars and Uranus: The affliction of Mars this month is ominous of outrages against persons in power. A disaster that will shock the people living in cities is threatened. Uranus foreshadows peril […]
Airminded was down for a couple of days recently, and it now has a new look. The reason for this is that it was hacked, and nuking the entire site from orbit was the only way to be sure. To be more specific, I noticed last week that Google searches for Airminded were throwing up
This is the poster produced by the Navy League in 1913 as a key part of its campaign to force the government to increase the amount it spent on military and naval aviation — or as the poster itself puts it, rather more succinctly: THE NAVY LEAGUE DEMANDS £1,000,000. FOR AERIAL DEFENCE BRITONS WAKE UP!
This must be about the strangest image to have ever appeared on this blog. How to explain it? First of all, it was published in Review of Reviews, May 1913, 457, accompanying the second part of a two-part article by Count Zeppelin on ‘The conquest of the air’. However, apart from the obvious aviation theme
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History.] Above is a poster printed in Australia during the First World War. It very strikingly shows a Zeppelin caught in searchlights (with an aeroplane just visible at the top) over what looks like a town nestled in a valley beside a river. The text reads: ZEPPELINS OVER YOUR TOWN
Cyril Power, Air Raid (1935): British biplanes tangling with an unidentified enemy against a smoke-filled sky. It is tempting, given the date, to see this as an air raid of the next war, especially given Power’s marked interest in machines and speed and influence by Futurism and Vorticism. But it could just as well be
For a country so far from the frontline, there was a surprising amount of discussion in the New Zealand press in the autumn of 1918 about the possibility of Auckland being bombed or Wellington being shelled. It’s true that it was often framed in a joking fashion, as with the above cartoon which appeared in
In between conferencing and researching, I managed to fit in some sightseeing in Wellington. It really was only a day or two, and sometimes the weather was somewhat inclement, but I did see some of the main attractions. Above is a detail of the portico of the beautiful Wellington Railway Station, which opened in 1937.
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] An interesting Flickr set of photographs evidently taken in the south of England in the last year of the Second World War was recently posted to a WWII mailing list I’m on. Many show aircraft of various types; others are of people and places. The photographer is unknown
The planet Venus normally sticks close to the Sun and so can only be seen very shortly after sunset, to the west (or before sunrise, to the east, when it is a morning star). But every 584 days, when it reaches maximum elongation in its orbit, it is far enough from the Sun in apparent
