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History Rewritten: Myths Busted & New Truths Uncovered

Did the British YCNY poster appear before or after the famous American "Uncle Sam Needs You" poster, with said patriotic character pointing out at you?
 
I always thought the Uncle Sam one was based on the Kitchener one.

My paternal grandfather's middle name was Kitchener; family legend had that it was to commemorate Kitchener's death, but that turned out not to be true, when someone finally looked up the dates :lol:
 
Fluttermoth said:
I always thought the Uncle Sam one was based on the Kitchener one.
That would make sense, as the Americans joined that war rather late...

But how could the Uncle Sam version be based upon a British poster that was never used...?! :shock:
 
The well-named James Montgomery Flagg designed the Uncle Sam version which is said to have been used in WWI:

Flagg Hag

No exact date given, alas. :(

Wikipedia says 1917

Uncle Sam - in his original versions? - always seemed to make the demand very personal: "I want you!"

It has had many parodies since. "I want you . . . unless!" :?
 
Can't find a suitable Earth Mysteries thread for this, so I'll park it here:

New timeline for origin of ancient Egypt
By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter, BBC World Service

A new timeline for the origin of ancient Egypt has been established by scientists.
A team from the UK found that the transformation from a land of disparate farmers into a state ruled by a king was more rapid than previously thought.
Using radiocarbon dating and computer models, they believe the civilisation's first ruler - King Aha - came to power in about 3100BC.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

Lead researcher Dr Michael Dee, from the Research Laboratory for Archaeology at the University of Oxford, said: "The formation of Egypt was unique in the ancient world. It was a territorial state; a state from which the moment it formed had established borders over a territory in much the same way we think of nations today.
"Trying to understand what happened in human history to lead people to establish this sort of polity we felt was a gap in understanding that needed to be filled."

Until now, the chronology of the earliest days of Egypt has been based on rough estimates.
With no written records from this very early period, a timeline has been based on the evolving styles of ceramics unearthed from human burial sites.

Now though, scientists have used radiocarbon dating of excavated hair, bones and plants, with established archaeological evidence and computer models to pinpoint when the ancient state came into existence.

Previous records suggested the pre-Dynastic period, a time when early groups began to settle along the Nile and farm the land, began in 4000BC. But the new analysis revealed this process started later, between 3700 or 3600BC.
The team found that just a few hundred years later, by about 3100BC, society had transformed to one ruled by a king.

Dr Dee told the BBC World Service programme Science in Action: "The time period is shorter than was previously thought - about 300 or 400 years shorter. Egypt was a state that emerged quickly - over that time one has immense social change.
"This is interesting when one compares it with other places. In Mesopotamia, for example, you have agriculture for several thousand years before you have anything like a state."

Archaeologists believe Egypt's first king, Aha, came to power after another prominent leader, Narmer, unified the land.

The team was also able to date the reigns of the next seven kings and queens - Djer, Djet, Queen Merneith, Den, Anedjib, Semerkhet and Qa'a - who with Aha formed Egypt's first dynasty.

The model suggests that King Djer may have ruled for more than 50 years. This is such a long period, it raises the possibility that there may have been other kings or queens of Egypt that we do not know about or that the state may have collapsed and reformed.

Commenting on the research, Prof Joann Fletcher from the department of archaeology at the University of York, said: "This is highly significant work, which pulls the beginnings of Egypt's dynastic history into much sharper focus - it is tremendously valuable to have such a precise timeline for Egypt's first rulers.
"The study also has ramifications for the earlier pre-Dynastic period, allowing us to better understand these key periods of transition."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23947820

Is Alan Partridge a reincarnation of King Aha?
;)
 
Designer of the Bayeux Tapestry possibly identified

http://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/29/designer-of-the-bayeux-tapestry-identified/

New research has identified the man who designed the Bayeux Tapestry, one of the most important artworks of the Middle Ages. Historian Howard B. Clarke believes that this was Scolland, the abbot of St.Augustine’s monastery in Canterbury, and that it was made around the year 1075.

Clarke, professor emeritus at University College, Dublin, first presented his ideas at the 2012 Battle Conference, which was held at the French town of Bayeux, and now published in the journal Anglo-Norman Studies.

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, when Duke William of Normandy defeated the English king Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings. The tapestry is considered to be a major artistic source for these events, although its origins remain a hotly debated mystery.

The key to the discovery of the designer lies in scene 17 of the tapestry, which depicts Duke William and Harold, on campaign against Brittany, crossing the River Couesnon near the abbey of Mont St. Michel. The abbey, which is located on an island just off the Norman coast, is depicted in this scene, along with an individual in the top border who is seated and pointing. Sometimes medieval artists depict themselves as miniatures, and Clarke suggests that this is also the case here. The wording on the tapestry that accompanies this image suggests that this person is saying he had watched this very scene himself.


If this interpretation is accurate, this would make the designer to be someone associated with Mont St. Michel, and Clarke believes that this person was Scolland:

Back in 1064, the year usually assigned to the Breton campaign, Scolland had been a senior monk at Mont Saint-Michel, acting both as treasurer and head of the scriptorium. After the Norman victory at Hastings he, along with others from the same monastery, went over to England and was effectively appointed by King William as head of England’s senior Benedictine house [of St.Augustine's in Canterbury] in 1070.

Clarke adds that there are several pieces of evidence which further link the Bayeux Tapestry with Abbot Scolland, including:

1) Scolland was the head of Mont Saint-Michel’s scriptorium, which oversaw the creation and illumination of manuscripts. The years 1040–75 are considered to be a ‘golden-age’ for manuscript illumination at the Norman abbey, which would have given Scolland a great amount of artistic experience.

2) It would explain why several of the early scenes in the tapestry focus on the Breton campaign, which isn’t considered part of the main narrative of the Norman Conquest, but would have been memorable to the monks of Mont St. Michel.

3) Two individuals who are depicted and named in the Bayeux Tapestry, Wadard and Vital, had links with monks of St Augustine’s and Scolland.

4) It has been suggested that the Tapestry’s frieze-like format and method of continuous narration may have been inspired by a triumphal monument like Trajan’s Column. It just happens that Scolland visited Rome in 1071-2, giving him the opportunity to have viewed Trajan’s Column.

Clarke believes that after returning from Rome to England, Scolland began the Bayeux Tapestry project, perhaps being commissioned by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who was a patron of the monks of St. Augustine’s. Over the next several months the monks and nuns of the abbey would have worked on the tapestry. Clarke writes:

Assuming that the pieces were worked on simultaneously, the designer would have had overall supervision. We have to envisage either one large workshop or a number of adjoining rooms. An assistant may have had charge of each individual wooden frame holding a section while the work proceeded. This may account for some of the artistic and inscriptional variations that have been noticed. In that entirely practical sense, the Bayeux Tapestry is best understood as what we might call a team effort, but there must nevertheless have been someone in charge of the whole operation.

In this video interview with Medievalists.net, Professor Clarke expands on how he made this discovery and how this will change scholarship related to the Bayeux Tapestry:

The paper given by Clarke at the Battle Conference got favourable impressions from the scholars who attended the meeting. His paper, ‘The Identity of the Designer of the Bayeux Tapestry’ appears in Anglo-Norman Studies, Vol. 35 (2013), which is published by Boydell and Brewer.
 
Head of Gestapo 'buried in Jewish cemetery in Berlin'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24757044

The Jewish cemetery in Berlin's district of Mitte where Heinrich Mueller is reported to be buried in a mass grave

German media report that the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Mueller, never survived World War II but was buried in a Jewish cemetery in 1945.

Mueller was one of the chief architects of the programme to exterminate Jews in Europe.

The Bild newspaper says it has seen documents confirming his death.

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, said he was shocked by the revelation.

"That such a brutal Nazi sadist is buried in a Jewish cemetery of all places is a tasteless monstrosity. The memory of victims is being heavily trampled on," he told Bild.

It quotes Prof Johannes Tuchel, an historian, who says he has discovered archive evidence showing that Mueller died at the end of the war.

"Mueller never survived the war. His body was buried in 1945 in a mass grave in the Jewish cemetery," he said.

Correspondents say any efforts to find the body of Heinrich Mueller would be very difficult since the exact location of the grave is unknown.

Enigma
There has always been an air of mystery surrounding the fate of Heinrich Mueller, a participant at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 where the elimination of Jews - the "final solution" - was determined.

He was recorded as being present in Hitler's bunker on the day he committed suicide. But thereafter his whereabouts remained unknown.

In 1949 Germany's intelligence agency (BND) reported seeing Mueller in Czechoslovakia. But there seems to be no evidence that he was pursued.

Prof Tuchel, who is also the head of the German Resistance Memorial in Berlin, said that that sighting was incorrect. He said documents unearthed indicate that Mueller was first buried near an airport in Berlin in the last days of the war.

He said that "a body in a general's uniform with Mueller's identification documents" was then disinterred and reburied in one of three mass graves in the Jewish cemetery and certified by a local registrar of deaths in 1945.

Later theories suggested Mueller was buried in the Neukoelln district of Berlin. And in 1963 a gravedigger, Walter Lueders, told police that he had buried Mueller personally, according to the German online website, The Local.
 
One in the eye for Battle: Is field, two miles away, the REAL spot where King Harold met his end?
By Robert Verkaik
Last updated at 12:33 AM on 9th October 2011

It is one of the most decisive and famous battles ever fought on English soil.
The Battle of Hastings in 1066 – long accepted as taking place in the fields around Battle Abbey a few miles north of the Sussex seaside town – launched the Norman Conquest.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1aHUCHQG9
Are bodies of 10,000 lost warriors from Battle of Hastings buried in this field?
Historian believes the 10,000 victims of the Battle of Hastings may be buried in a field one mile north west of the official site at Battle.
10:08AM BST 25 Oct 2012

The site of where the Battle of Hastings has been commemorated for the last 1,000 years is in the wrong place, it has been claimed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... field.html

Tonight on Ch4:

1066: The Lost Battlefield: A Time Team Special
Channel 4
Today on Channel 4 from 8:00pm to 9:00pm

Archaeology series. Tony Robinson investigates the actual location of England's most famous defeat. In 2012, a bestseller claimed that Caldbec Hill, a mile away from Battle Abbey, was the real site, but most historians still believe the main focus of the fighting was in the fields below the abbey. Time Team excavate both sites to seek evidence of either one being a battlefield.

Unmissable! :D
 
What archives? UK ordered destruction of ‘embarrassing’ colonial papers
Published time: November 30, 2013 12:14
http://rt.com/news/british-colonies-doc ... ction-512/

Britain systematically destroyed documents in colonies that were about to gain independence, declassified Foreign Office files reveal. ‘Operation Legacy’ saw sensitive documents secretly burnt or dumped to cover up traces of British activities.

The latest National Archives publication made from a collection of 8,800 colonial-era files held by the Foreign Office for decades revealed deliberate document elimination by British authorities in former colonies.

The secret program dubbed ‘Operation Legacy’ was in force throughout the 1950s and 1960s, in at least 23 countries and territories under British rule that eventually gained independence after WWII. Among others these countries included: Belize, British Guiana, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia and Singapore, Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia and Zimbabwe), Tanzania, and Uganda.

In a telegram from the UK Colonial Office dispatched to British embassies on May 3, 1961, colonial secretary Iain Macleod instructed diplomats to withhold official documents from newly elected independent governments in those countries, and presented general guidance on what to do.

British diplomats were briefed on how exactly they were supposed to get rid of documents that “might embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants (such as police agents or informers)” or “might compromise sources of intelligence”, or could be put to ‘wrong’ use by incoming national authorities.

‘Operation Legacy’ also called for the destruction or removal of “all papers which are likely to be interpreted, either reasonably or by malice, as indicating racial prejudice or bias”.

The newly declassified files revealed that the Royal Navy base in Singapore was turned into the Asian region’s primary document destruction center. A special facility called a “splendid incinerator” was used to burn “lorry loads of files”, Agence France-Presse reported.

The “central incinerator” in Singapore was necessary to avoid a situation similar to that in India in 1947, when a “pall of smoke” from British officials burning their papers in Delhi, ahead of India proclaiming independence, filled the local press with critical reports. That diplomatic oversight was taken into account, as ‘Operation Legacy’ operatives were strictly instructed not to burn documents openly.

But not all the doomed archives could be shipped to Singapore. In some cases documents were eliminated on site, sometimes being dumped in the sea “at the maximum practicable distance from shore” and in deep, current-free areas, the National Archives publication claims.

Members of the combined Chinese Armed Forces raise the Chinese Flag at the Hong Kong convention center on July 1, 1997 marking the moment Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule. (AFP Photo/Kimimasa Mayama)Members of the combined Chinese Armed Forces raise the Chinese Flag at the Hong Kong convention center on July 1, 1997 marking the moment Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule. (AFP Photo/Kimimasa Mayama)

The newly published collection of documents reveals that the British cleared out Kenyan intelligence files that contained information about abuse and torture of Kenyans during the Mau Mau uprising against British colonial rule in the 1950s. A special committee formed in 1961 coordinated document elimination in Kenya. Yet some files were spared simply when an estimated 307 boxes of documents were evacuated to Britain, just months ahead of the country gaining independence in December 1963.

The existence of some remaining Mau Mau legal case documents was revealed in January 2011.

Even after eliminating important evidence half a century ago, earlier in 2013 the British government was forced to pay 23 million dollars in compensation to over 5,200 elderly Kenyans, who had suffered from Britain’s punitive measures during the Mau Mau uprising.

In another documented occasion, in April 1957, five lorries delivered tons of documents from the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to the Royal Navy base in Singapore. Files were incinerated there; these contained details about British rule in Malaya, such as a massacre of 24 rubber plantation workers at the Malayan village of Batang Kali in 1948, who had allegedly been murdered by British soldiers.

Despite the mass document elimination, Britain’s Foreign Office still has some 1.2 million unpublished documents on British colonial policy, David Anderson, professor of African history at the University of Warwick, told AFP.

So Her Majesty’s government might still publish more valuable material that can shed more light on how one of the biggest empires in human history used to be governed. Overall, Britain had total control over 50 colonies including Canada, India, Australia, Nigeria, and Jamaica. Currently, there are 14 British Overseas Territories that remain under British rule, though most of them are self-governing and all have leaderships of their own.
 
rynner2 said:
1066: The Lost Battlefield: A Time Team Special
Channel 4

Archaeology series. Tony Robinson investigates the actual location of England's most famous defeat. In 2012, a bestseller claimed that Caldbec Hill, a mile away from Battle Abbey, was the real site, but most historians still believe the main focus of the fighting was in the fields below the abbey. Time Team excavate both sites to seek evidence of either one being a battlefield.
New evidence for Battle of Hastings site considered

New evidence that questions the traditional site of King Harold's death during the Battle of Hastings is being considered by English Heritage.
Battle Abbey in East Sussex is said to stand on the spot where King Harold died when the English army was routed by the Normans in 1066.
But Channel 4's Time Team claims he fell on the site of what is now a mini roundabout on the A2100.

Abbey curator Roy Porter said the theory would be taken into account.
English Heritage runs 1066 tours of the traditional site of the Battle of Hastings but the actual location has been disputed before.

Nick Austin, author of Secrets Of The Norman Invasion, claimed in 2011 that King Harold was defeated by William the Conqueror two miles away in Crowhurst.

Time Team presenter Sir Tony Robinson said the programme used aerial technology called LIDAR to map the terrain at Battle which showed the traditional site would have been too boggy for the Norman cavalry.
"There was a long ridge which the Normans would have to take if they were going to head north and within that there was a narrow pass," he said.
"The narrow pass was the perfect place for Harold's men to build their shield wall.
"There is apparently no sense whatsoever in fighting the battle in the field below Battle Abbey which has always been designated and thought of as the site of the actual fighting."

The pass lies on today's A2100 road.
Mr Porter, who works for English Heritage, said the location identified by Time Team fell within the wider battlefield area.
"We have always maintained that the Abbey is built on the site of the battle because sources dating back to the early 12th Century state that," he said.
"The now-famous roundabout lies about 100m to the east of the abbey's precinct wall and, of course, the fighting would have taken place over a wider area than simply the road and the roundabout.
"The fighting would have gone along the ridge and on the commanding position of the ridge you find Battle Abbey."

He said it was very difficult nowadays to get a sense of the landscape of the battlefield because of the road.
"But I do agree that the theory is worth considering and I hope that further work will either confirm or undermine it.
"Certainly we want to take it into account when we revise the interpretation here."

----------------------------------------

The Battle of Hastings
Edward the Confessor's death in 1066 left a disputed succession and the throne was seized by his leading aristocrat, Harold Godwinson
King Harold quickly faced invasion on two fronts - from the King of Norway, Harald Hardrada, and William, Duke of Normandy
The Norwegian invasion was put down at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, but Harold was later killed by William's army at the Battle of Hastings
The victorious William was subsequently known as "the Conqueror" and the events are depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry
Source: BBC History

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-25191208

It's on 4oD:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/time ... od#3618762
 
I seem to recall in the BBC's old 'dark ages' series, they posited that the real story of Harold's death was that he was torn to pieces on the battlefield in the good old Viking way, and that afterwards this was considered a bit excessive.

So a 'nicer' myth was generated and William banished the nobles involved. I have the book of the series somewhere , but not time to dig it out at the moment.
 
WW1 trooper who rewrote history books
Historians always assumed soldiers of the Great War did not undergo heart surgery - new research shows they were wrong
By Lord Ashcroft
7:02PM GMT 04 Jan 2014

It is a tale of First World War bravery and innovative surgery that has emerged nearly a century later after a chance encounter between strangers.
Norman Briffa, a consultant cardiac surgeon, was asked to give a talk in September 2011 to the patrons of a Sheffield theatre company.
After he had finished his History Of Surgery lecture, audience member, Sheila Hobson, questioned his assertion that wounded soldiers had not had heart surgery until the Second World War.

Although she had no medical training, Mrs Hobson insisted it had long been known within her family that her great uncle, Trooper Robert Martin, had undergone and survived major heart surgery during the First World War after being wounded.

Mr Briffa told Mrs Hobson that he “respectfully doubted” her claims but, because of her insistence and his interest, he asked her to supply details so that he could investigate.
Now, after extensive inquiries, documents written at the time have proved that Mrs Hobson’s claims were entirely accurate and, in her words, medical history “will have to be rewritten”. 8)

Meanwhile, Mr Briffa was so touched by his discoveries about Trooper Martin that he has paid his respects to the heart patient he never knew by visiting his overseas grave.

The extraordinary story has emerged as a result of The Sunday Telegraph monthly supplements, Inside the First World War, that I am sponsoring. Mr Briffa, who has read and enjoyed them, emailed me saying he had uncovered a “story that needs to be told and retold lest we forget the victims and the amazing efforts of medical staff all those years ago”.

This is that story…

Robert Hugh Martin, the son of an engineer, was born in Walkley, Sheffield, in 1896, the second of six children.
Gentle, fun-loving and a keen footballer, Martin left school for an office job before switching to become an apprentice printer. After the outbreak of the war, he continued working because he was too young to serve.

However, when going to the printers one day, Martin was horrified when a woman showed him a white feather – implying he was a coward for not joining up. Shortly afterwards, he signed up, despite being just 17, with the Derbyshire Yeomanry.
The regiment, including Martin, saw action at Gallipoli, before joining the Salonika Campaign, in what is now Thessalonika, Greece.

It was here, in battle, on November 14, 1917 – his 21st birthday – that Martin was shot in the chest by a Bulgarian soldier while on horseback. Despite his injuries, he rode several miles to the nearest dressing station.
After being patched up in a basic operation on November 16, he was transferred to Malta on the ill-fated hospital ship, HMHS Glenart Castle (later sunk by a German U-boat).
It was not until January 13, 1918 that Martin arrived at St Elmo Hospital in Valletta, the island’s capital. At the time, Malta was known affectionately as “the nurse of the Mediterranean”.

However, the treatment available for wounded soldiers, especially those with major organ damage, was limited and – in the days before heart-lung machines to keep a patient alive – heart surgery was considered futile.
Indeed, towards the end of the 19th century, Christian Billroth, the respected Austrian surgeon, had said: “A surgeon who tries to suture a heart wound deserves to lose the esteem of his colleagues.” Other surgical giants agreed.

Modern-day heart surgeons, including Mr Briffa, have long believed advances did not come until the 1920s, when doctors surgically treated patients with rheumatic disease of the mitral valve, but with limited success.
It was widely believed heart injuries from battle were not dealt with by surgery until the Second World War, when Dwight Harken, the American surgeon carried out pioneering work in London.

He found a way of treating patients by cutting into the wall of the beating heart, then inserting a finger to locate and remove the shrapnel. With this method, he became the first to enjoy repeated success in heart operations, removing shrapnel from 130 wounded men without a fatality.

However, Mr Briffa’s research has now revealed Trooper Martin underwent complex heart surgery in early 1918, after medical experts concluded that without such treatment he would die.
Sadly, although the operation was successful, Trooper Martin later contracted an infection that claimed his life. He died on March 14, 1918, still aged 21.


Mr Briffa believes that, amid the chaos of war, the extent of the innovative surgery was never recognised, even within the medical world.
“The amazing efforts of the heroic British army surgeons in treating heart injuries were largely forgotten,” he said.

By chance, Mr Briffa, who works at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, was born and raised in Malta. He returned last year, and visited the Pieta Military Cemetery, near Valletta.
He said: “I was privileged to visit Trooper Martin’s grave and pay my respects on November 10, 2012, the day before Armistice Day.
“Trooper Martin died only because antibiotics had not yet been invented. Now I feel sure similar efforts took place in other theatres of the Great War and that there were long-term survivors.”

After making extensive inquiries, Mr Briffa received information from the Ministry of Defence that showed the operation was supervised by Colonel Sir Charles Ballance, who had been chief surgeon to the Metropolitan Police.
The Ministry of Defence told him that the operation had been briefly written up in The History of the Great War, Medical Services: Surgery of the War, Vol 1, HMSO, published in 1922.

Eventually, Mr Briffa also tracked down an article in the Royal Army Medical Corps Magazine published in December 1918. Written by Sir Charles Ballance and Dr Marguerite White, a surgeon attached to the Hospital, the article described how they had removed the rifle bullet from the right ventricle of the heart with forceps, while internal stitches were used to stem bleeding. The patient was identified only as “Trpr. M., aged 21”.

Many of Sir Charles’ descendants followed him into medicine. His great grandson, Peter Ballance, who lives near Paignton in Devon, retired as a consultant anaesthetist three years ago.
When told of his ancestor’s pioneering procedure, he said: “This is news to the family and very interesting to hear.
“He was known more as a neurosurgeon and ear, nose and throat specialist, rather than for his cardiac surgery, but he was renowned as quite experimental and innovative.”

Like Mr Briffa, Mrs Hobson has visited her great-uncle’s grave on Malta. “It is important that the memory of all these servicemen is recognised and remembered. They sacrificed their lives for our freedom,” she said.

She still possesses postcards sent home by Trooper Martin after arriving in Malta.
In the hand-written cards, he played down his serious injuries and made no mention of any surgery. Instead, he sent his “love and kisses” to his family.

Mrs Hobson, who lives in Sheffield, said: “I’m delighted that 'Uncle Bob’ [Trooper Martin] and his surgical team are finally going to be recognised for their part in medical history.
“I am enormously grateful to Mr Briffa for all his efforts. The history of heart surgery is now going to have to be rewritten as a result of everything he has found out.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/worl ... books.html
 
rynner2 said:
Relic reveals Noah's ark was circular
• Newly translated tablet gives building instructions
• Amateur historian's find was almost overlooked
Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 January 2010 22.35 GMT

That they processed aboard the enormous floating wildlife collection two-by-two is well known. Less familiar, however, is the possibility that the animals Noah shepherded on to his ark then went round and round inside.

According to newly translated instructions inscribed in ancient Babylonian on a clay tablet telling the story of the ark, the vessel that saved one virtuous man, his family and the animals from god's watery wrath was not the pointy-prowed craft of popular imagination but rather a giant circular reed raft.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/0 ... s-circular
Much more of the same, with most of the same cast:

Noah's Ark: the facts behind the Flood
There was indeed a great flood, and the animals really did go in two by two. But does an ancient tablet hold the blueprint for the Ark?
By Irving Finkel
7:00AM GMT 19 Jan 2014

....

People bring all sorts of unexpected objects to the British Museum to have them identified. In 1985 a cuneiform tablet was brought in by a member of the public already known to me, for he had been in with Babylonian objects before. His name was Douglas Simmonds. Gruff, non-communicative and to me largely unfathomable, he had a conspicuously large head housing a large measure of intelligence.

He owned a collection of miscellaneous objects and antiquities that he had inherited from his father, Leonard. Leonard had a lifelong eye for curiosities, and, as a member of the RAF, was stationed in the Near East around the end of the Second World War, acquiring interesting bits and pieces of tablets at the same time.

I was more taken aback than I can say to discover that one of his cuneiform tablets was a copy of the Babylonian Flood story. The trouble was that, as one read down the inscribed surface of the unbaked tablet, things got harder; turning it over to confront the reverse for the first time was a cause for despair. I explained that it would take many hours to ­wrestle meaning from the broken signs, but Douglas would not leave his tablet with me. He blithely repacked his Flood tablet and more or less bade me good day.

Nothing happened about “my” tablet until much later, when I spotted Douglas staring at Nebuchadnezzar’s East India House inscription in our Babylon: Myth and Reality exhibition early in 2009. I picked my way carefully through the crowds of visitors and asked him about it. The bewitching cuneiform tablets strewn around the exhibition must have had a good effect because he promised to bring his tablet in again for me to examine. And he did.

Decipherment proceeded in fits and starts, with groans and expletives, and in mounting – but fully dressed – excitement. Weeks later, it seemed, I looked up, blinking in the sudden light.
I had discovered that the Simmonds cuneiform tablet (henceforth known as the Ark Tablet) was virtually an instruction manual for building an ark. :shock:

The story of a flood that destroyed the world, in which human and animal life was saved from extinction by a hero with a boat, is almost universal in the world’s treasury of traditional literature. Many scholars have tried to collect all the specimens in a butterfly net, to pin them out and docket them for family, genus and species. Flood stories in the broadest sense have been documented in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Syria, Europe, India, New Guinea, Central America, North America, Australia and South America.

The story of Noah, iconic in the Book of Genesis, and as a consequence a central motif in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, invites the greatest attention. In all three scriptures the Flood comes as punishment for wrongdoing by man, part of a “give-up-on-this-lot-and-start-over” resolution governing divine relations with the human world. There is a direct and undoubted Flood continuum from the Hebrew Old Testament to the Greek New Testament on the one hand and the Arabic Koran on the other.

Since the Victorian-period discoveries of George Smith it has been understood that the Hebrew account derives, in its turn, from that in Babylonian cuneiform, much older and surely the original that launched the story on its journey.

...

The Ark Tablet, like many documents of its period, is designed to fit comfortably in the reader’s hand; it is much the same size and weight as a contemporary mobile phone.

The tablet was written during the Old Babylonian period, broadly 1900–1700BC. The document was not dated by the scribe, but from the shape and appearance of the tablet itself, the character and composition of the cuneiform and the grammatical forms and usages, we can be sure that this is the period in which it was written. It was composed in Semitic Babylonian (Akkadian) in a literary style. The hand is neat and that of a fully trained cuneiform scribe. The text has been written out very ably without error and for a specific purpose; it is certainly not a school practice tablet from a beginner, or anything of that kind. It measures 11.5cm by 6cm and contains exactly 60 lines.

The front (or obverse) is in fine condition and virtually everything can be read. The back (or reverse) is damaged in the middle of most lines, with the result that not everything there can be read now, although much of substantial importance can be deciphered; some parts are simply missing altogether and other parts are very badly worn.

The most remarkable feature provided by the Ark Tablet is that the lifeboat built by Atra-hasis – the Noah-like hero who receives his instructions from the god Enki – was definitely, unambiguously round. “Draw out the boat that you will make,” he is instructed, “on a circular plan.”

Confronting the fact comes, initially, as a shock. For every­one knows what Noah’s Ark, the real Ark, looks like: a squat wooden affair with prow and stern and a little house in the middle, not to mention a gangplank and several windows. No respectable child’s nursery at one time was without one, with its chewed pairs of animals.

The tenacity of the conventional Western vision of the Ark is remarkable, and remains, at least to me, inexplicable, for where did it come from in the first place? The only “evidence” that artists or toymakers had before them was the description in the Old Testament where Noah’s Ark is altogether a different proposition. (Indeed, the key words in the description of the Ark are used nowhere else in the Bible, and no one knows what language they are written in.)

As I stared into space with the tablet precariously poised over the desk, the idea of a round ark began to make sense. A truly round boat would be a coracle, and they certainly had coracles in ancient Mesopotamia; a coracle is exceptionally buoyant and would never sink, and if it happened to be difficult to steer or stop from going around and round that would not matter, because all it had to do was keep its contents safe and dry until the waters receded.

Coracles, in their unassuming way, have played a crucial and long-running role in man’s relationship with rivers. They belong, like dugout canoes and rafts, to the most practical stratum of invention: natural resources giving rise to simple solutions that can hardly be improved upon. The reed coracle is effectively a large basket, sealed with bitumen to prevent waterlogging. Its construction is somehow natural to riverine communities; coracles from India and Iraq, Tibet and Wales are close cousins. These traditional craft remained in use, unchanged, on the rivers of Mesopotamia into the first half of the last century.

Before the arrival of the Ark Tablet, hard facts for the boatbuilder were sparse. We have had to wait until now for the statistics of shape, size and dimensions, as well as everything to do with the matter of waterproofing. The information that has now become available could be turned into a printed set of specifications sufficient for any would-be ark-builder today.

Enki tells Atra-hasis in a very practical way how to get his boat started; he is to draw out a plan of the round boat on the ground. The simplest way to do this would have been with a peg and a long string. The stage is thus set for building the world’s largest coracle, with a base area of 38,750sq ft, and a diameter of, near enough, 230ft. It works out to be the size of a Babylonian “field”, what we would call an acre. The walls, at about 20ft, would effectively inhibit an upright male giraffe from looking over at us.

Atra-hasis’s coracle was to be made of rope, coiled into a gigantic basket. This rope was made of palm fibre, and vast quantities of it were going to be needed. Coiling the rope and weaving between the rows eventually produces a giant round floppy basket, which is then stiffened with a set of J-shaped wooden ribs. Stanchions, mentioned in lines 15-16, were a crucial element in the Ark’s construction and an innovation in response to Atra-has?s’s special requirements, for they allow the introduction of an upper deck.

These stanchions could be placed in diverse arrangements; set flat on the interlocked square ends of the ribs, they would facilitate subdivision of the lower floor space into suitable areas for bulky or fatally incompatible animals. One striking peculiarity of Atra-hasis’s reports is that he doesn’t mention either the deck or the roof explicitly, but within the specifications both deck and roof are implicit. (In line 45 Atra-has?s goes up to the roof to pray.)

The next stage is crucial: the application of bitumen for waterproofing, inside and out, a job to be taken very seriously considering the load and the likely weather conditions. Fortunately, bitumen bubbled out of the Mesopotamian ground in an unending, benevolent supply. Atra-hasis devotes 20 of his 60 lines to precise details about waterproofing his boat. It is just one of the many remarkable aspects of the Ark Tablet that we are thereby given the most complete account of caulking a boat to have come down to us from antiquity.

Boat-building notwithstanding, one cannot help but worry about the various Noahs, Babylonian and otherwise, and all their animals: the thought of rounding them up, marching them up the gangplank and ensuring good behaviour all round for a voyage of unknown length…

At first sight, the very broken lines 51–52 of the Ark Tablet looked unpromising. The surface, if not completely lost, is badly abraded in this part of the tablet. I needed, then, to bring every sophisticated technique of decipherment into play: polishing the magnifying glass, holding it steady, repeatedly moving the tablet under the light to get the slightest shadow of a worn-out wedge or two. Eventually the sign traces in line 51 could be seen to be “and the wild animal[s of the st]ep[pe]”.

What gave me the biggest shock in 44 years of grappling with cuneiform tablets was, however, what came next. My best shot at the first two signs beginning line 52 came up with “sa” and “na”, both incompletely preserved. On looking unhopefully for words beginning “sana” in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, I found the following entry and nearly fell off my chair as a result of the words: “sana (or sanâ) adv. Two each, two by two.” 8)

This is a very rare word among all our texts – when the dictionary was published there had only been two occurrences. To me, it is the world’s most beautiful dictionary definition.

For the first time we learn that the Babylonian animals, like those of Noah, went in two by two, a completely unsuspected Babylonian tradition that draws us ever closer to the familiar narrative of the Bible. (Another interesting matter: the Babylonian flood story in cuneiform is 1,000 years older than the Book of Genesis in Hebrew, but reading the two accounts together demonstrates their close, literary relationship. No firm explanation of how this might have really come about has previously been offered, but study of the circumstances in which the Judaeans exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II found themselves answers many crucial questions.)

There is a further consideration raised by these two lines in the Ark Tablet: they only mention wild animals. I imagine domestic livestock might well be taken for granted, especially if some of the animals were going to be part of their own food chain.

Today the question of Noah’s animals is no longer a preoccupation of scientific inquiry, but there was a time when serious scholars, especially the great polymath Athanasius Kircher (c1601–80), thought a good deal about them, just when knowledge of natural history was on the increase.

Kircher’s Ark taxonomy ran to only about 50 pairs of animals, leaving him to conclude that space inside was not such a difficulty. He developed the explanation that Noah had rescued all the animals that then existed, and that the subsequent profusion of different species in the world resulted from postdiluvian adaptation, or interbreeding among the Ark species; so that giraffes, for example, were produced after the Flood by camel and leopard parents.

The relationship between Enki and Atra-hasis is conventionally portrayed as that between master and servant. If Atra-hasis was not a king but a private citizen, this does raise the question of the grounds on which these “proto-Noahs” were selected to fulfil their great task. It is not evident that either was an obvious choice as, say, a famous boatbuilder. There is some indication of temple connections, but nothing to indicate that the hero was actually a member of the priesthood. Perhaps the selection was on the grounds that what was needed was a fine, upright individual who would listen to divine orders and carry them out to the full whatever his private misgivings, but we are not told.

In each case the right man seems to have been offered the job. All the stories agree that the boat, whatever its shape, was successfully built, and that human and animal life was safely preserved so that the world could go on. A story that recommends foresight and planning in order to ensure that outcome has lost none of its resonance.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/book ... Flood.html

I leave it to dedicated enthusiasts to read these articles in full.
Or (surprise, surprise!) you can read


'The Ark Before Noah’, by Irving Finkel (Hodder, RRP £20),
available to order from Telegraph Books at £18 + £1.35 p&p.
 
Back to Britain, and the interplay of legend and history. Ian Hislop casts an interested, affectionate but non-credulous eye over the Olden Days.

Ian Hislop's Olden Days - 1. Heroes For All Times

Ian Hislop explores perhaps the most distinctive, peculiar and deep-seated trait of the British, our obsession with the past. Over three films he reveals how and why, throughout our history, we have continually plundered 'the olden days' to make sense of and shape the present.

This opening episode reveals how, ever since 1066, we have harked back to the Dark Ages. In particular, Ian turns his gaze on two of our most inspiring kings - King Arthur and King Alfred - one quite possibly entirely fictional, the other entirely historical, and yet each the stuff of legend.

On the trail of legendary King Arthur, Ian visits Tintagel Castle, the fantastic Round Table at Winchester and even the sacred 'burial place' of Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury Abbey. He finds out how this storybook king has changed, from wild Celtic warlord to chivalric hero; from piously questing king to national totem of Victorian Wales. Ian also discovers why the king of Camelot inspired Henry VIII as much as today's New Age druids.

King Alfred repelled the Vikings, reorganised the army and was an educational pioneer... not, Ian notes wryly, as exciting as pulling a sword from a stone, but rather more useful. And yet, peeling away the evidence, there is more fiction involved in this 'historic' king than meets the eye - manipulated to suit the diverse purposes of tricksy mediaeval lawyers, a Tudor archbishop for whom we have the cake-burning story to thank, and even a Georgian prince of Wales, he gradually becomes blessed with almost every virtue. By Victorian times, Alfred the Great, has evolved into 'the most perfect man in history', one-man embodiment of everything that is great about Great Britain.

Winston Churchill summoned up the spirit of Alfred to inspire the nation in the dark days of 1940. Meanwhile Arthur reigns supreme today in movies, TV series and even online gaming. Ian even gets to meet Arthur Uther Pendragon, self-declared reincarnation of King Arthur himself, to find out what is on Arthur's mind in the 21st century.

The multiple historical makeovers of these Dark Age kings provide a fascinating insight into the evolution of our sense of national identity. Thoroughly forensic, always curious and witty, this is an exploration of high and low culture over 1,000 years. As ever with Ian Hislop's cultural histories, it focuses on the 'story' bit of history and holds up a most revealing mirror to ourselves.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... All_Times/

Duration 60 minutes

Available until
9:59PM Wed, 30 Apr 2014

Recommended viewing for Forteans!
 
rynner2 said:
King Alfred repelled the Vikings, reorganised the army and was an educational pioneer... not, Ian notes wryly, as exciting as pulling a sword from a stone, but rather more useful. And yet, peeling away the evidence, there is more fiction involved in this 'historic' king than meets the eye - manipulated to suit the diverse purposes of tricksy mediaeval lawyers, a Tudor archbishop for whom we have the cake-burning story to thank, and even a Georgian prince of Wales, he gradually becomes blessed with almost every virtue. By Victorian times, Alfred the Great, has evolved into 'the most perfect man in history', one-man embodiment of everything that is great about Great Britain.

Winston Churchill summoned up the spirit of Alfred to inspire the nation in the dark days of 1940.
This perhaps indicates that I’m a bad person: but I’m inclined to enjoy seeing various historical “goody-goodies” debunked, or at least shown in an other-than-favourable light. I’ve thus loved the “Saxon Stories” historical novels by Bernard Cornwell (of Sharpe ), set in the reign of, and featuring, Alfred the Great.

The novels’ first-person narrator is the warrior Uhtred of Bebbanburg, an associate of Alfred’s who is nonetheless personally his diametrical opposite: the two men can’t stand each other. Uhtred is a Saxon, but has spent much of his childhood as a hostage among the Danes: which people, and their way of life, he has come in that time, to like. Circumstances nonetheless so work out that Uhtred spends much of his life in Alfred’s service, and is one of his prominent generals in war against the Danes.

It is not a harmonious relationship. Uhtred – a full-blooded type who enjoys life’s good things -- sees Christianity as a gloomy, repressive religion, and stubbornly insists on worshipping the Norse gods, despite incessant strong pressure to convert to the newer faith. He regards the highly pious Christian Alfred as a miserable guilt- and fear-ridden killjoy, obsessed with the more negative aspects of his religion: thus mercilessly hard on himself, and eager to as much as possible, limit others’ fun in life. Alfred greatly and vocally disapproves of Uhtred’s paganism and his hedonistic approach to things. For Uhtred, Alfred’s court is a dismal, priest-ridden place: the king’s hospitality is meagre and low-quality, both because of Alfred’s ascetic bent, and because of his being beset by digestive disorders; furthermore, Alfred is under the thumb of his equally joyless, and disagreeable and shrewish, wife.

Alfred drives Uhtred mad by his being obsessive-compulsive, and a workaholic and a devotee of great orderliness in everything. Additionally, he is in Uhtred’s view an annoying science- and techno-geek, mad for every barmy new invention he comes across, which he thinks will help to make the kingdom run more efficiently. He even insists that his chief war-leaders be literate, in the interests of waging war more efficiently: so that Uhtred, in his twenties, has to – of all the, in his eyes, unwelcome and pointless projects which might be forced on him -- learn to read and write

Uhtred acknowledges Alfred’s positive qualities and force of character; but most of the time, he hates him, and the sentiment is returned in full. One understands that very often, a vigorous and dynamic leader in times of crisis cannot afford to be a “nice guy”, and that such individuals are apt to be uncomfortable to be around – but I confess to enjoying a view from the perspective of someone in that situation, who is made uncomfortable by it.
 
amyasleigh said:
This perhaps indicates that I’m a bad person: but I’m inclined to enjoy seeing various historical “goody-goodies” debunked, or at least shown in an other-than-favourable light. I’ve thus loved the “Saxon Stories” historical novels by Bernard Cornwell (of Sharpe ), set in the reign of, and featuring, Alfred the Great.

The novels’ first-person narrator is the warrior Uhtred of Bebbanburg, an associate of Alfred’s who is nonetheless personally his diametrical opposite: the two men can’t stand each other. Uhtred is a Saxon, but has spent much of his childhood as a hostage among the Danes: which people, and their way of life, he has come in that time, to like. Circumstances nonetheless so work out that Uhtred spends much of his life in Alfred’s service, and is one of his prominent generals in war against the Danes.
[...]

Nice review, thank you. I feel I should make the time to read these books.
 
markrkingston1 said:
Nice review, thank you. I feel I should make the time to read these books.
They've stretched out into quite a series -- seven to date, I think, with a possibility of yet more: I have yet to read the latest couple. IMHO the more recent novels in the series have become a bit "samey"; but I consider the earlier ones, pure gold -- featuring some splendid characters.
 
amyasleigh said:
markrkingston1 said:
Nice review, thank you. I feel I should make the time to read these books.
They've stretched out into quite a series -- seven to date, I think, with a possibility of yet more: I have yet to read the latest couple. IMHO the more recent novels in the series have become a bit "samey"; but I consider the earlier ones, pure gold -- featuring some splendid characters.

That happens with novel cycles.

But you have made them sound quite interesting. I'll put the first one on my list, reach it in a few years time I suppose.
 
Cambridge scholar claims ancient account of the Battle of Clontarf is fiction
Jane Walsh @irishcentral April 24,2014 04:00 AM

Only history written on Brian Boru’s heroic battle was highly influenced by the classical story of Troy. Photo by: Battle of Clontarf Art

PHOTOS - 1,000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf and death of Brian Boru

A defining tale in Ireland’s history, Brian Boru’s death and the Battle of Clontarf might have been fabricated claims a Cambridge scholar.

On April 23, 1014 a violent battle between the army of Ireland’s High King Brian Boru and a force led by the rebel king and leader of the Dublin-based Vikings took place outside the fortifications of the growing town. Brian Boru’s forces were victorious, but he was murdered while praying in his tent, or so the story goes.

According to Dr Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, a researcher from St John's College at Cambridge University, this is partly a “pseudo-history” based heavily on the Battle of Troy. Her thesis is mapped out in her new book “Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative.”

Our knowledge of the Battle of Clontarf is based on an account in “Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh” or “The War of the Irish against the Foreigners.” The Press Association report states that the book “was really a work of fiction aiming to cement Ireland's legendary past in the context of a grand, classical tradition, stretching back to the works of Homer and classical philosophy.”

Dublin City’s Archaeologist Ruth Johnson agrees. She told IrishCentral,“A lot of what we know about Brian Boru comes from the ‘Cogadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh,’ a propaganda document written by his ancestors, maybe two or three generations after him. It is very closely allied to the story of the Trojan War. It sets Brian Boru as the hero and probably has a lot of poetic license included.”

This means that the historical truth is unknown. Ní Mhaonaigh believes the details of the battle will remain a mystery.

She told the PA, “The casting of Clontarf as a national struggle in which the aged, holy Brian was martyred still defines what most people know about the battle, and it has probably endured because that was what numerous generations of Irish men and women wanted to read.

"Academics have long accepted that "Cogadh" couldn't be taken as reliable evidence but that hasn't stopped some of them from continuing to draw on it to portray the encounter.

"What this research shows is that its account of the battle was crafted, at least in part, to create a version of events that was the equivalent of Troy.

"This was more than a literary flourish, it was a work of a superb, sophisticated and learned author." She continued “Whoever wrote this was operating as part of larger, learned European tradition.

"People should not see the fact that it is a fabricated narrative as somehow a slur against Brian, because what it really shows is that his descendants were operating at a cultural level of the highest complexity and order."



Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/histo ... z2zqaFIG7d
Follow us: @IrishCentral on Twitter | IrishCentral on Facebook
 
Dublin City’s Archaeologist Ruth Johnson agrees. She told IrishCentral,“A lot of what we know about Brian Boru comes from the ‘Cogadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh,’ a propaganda document written by his ancestors, maybe two or three generations after him.

Maybe I'm getting senile, but I always thought that your ancestors lived in the generations before your own...

The generations after you are your descendents.

But who am I to contradict Dublin City’s Archaeologist? ;)
 
Long but interesting article on (mostly) English counties.

The baffling map of England's counties
By Jon Kelly, BBC News Magazine

Signs marking traditional English county boundaries are due to return, but the distinction between historic and administrative divisions can be hugely confusing.

Do you know which county you live in? Are you sure? Is that a historic or a ceremonial council or a county council or some combination thereof?

For many people, their sense of self is bound up in a fierce local pride in their county. But some say it isn't always clear exactly which one it is.
People in Scunthorpe lived in the non-metropolitan and ceremonial county of Humberside from 1974 to 1996. Now they live in the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire. Humberside no longer exists as a county but Humberside Police and Humberside Fire and Rescue Service still do.

If you're in Birkenhead, you are in the historic county of Cheshire, the ceremonial county of Merseyside (although Merseyside County Council was abolished in 1986) and the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral.

Middlesex dates back to the 8th Century but Middlesex County Council was abolished in 1965. Middlesex County Cricket Club and Middlesex University live on. So too does the historic county of Middlesex even though most of its inhabitants now live in the ceremonial county of Greater London.

...

Now, in an effort to support the "tapestry" of ancient place names, the government has changed its rules allowing councils to put up boundary signs marking traditional English counties - including the likes of Cumberland and Huntingdonshire, names which no longer have any connection to local authorities.

"Previous governments have tried to wipe the counties off the map, imposing bland administrative structures or alien euro-regions," Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said as he announced the change. But "we are stronger as a nation when we cherish and champion our local and traditional ties", he added.

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27140505
 
Most if the muddle is due to the constant - and pointless - tinkering of the last 50 years. Much of the tinkering is driven by those of a lazy bean counter mentality who want everything thing neatly categorised and the same size.

Real life isn't like that.

Many people I know were brought up in those parts of Essex which administratively have been parts of London for decades , in many cases before they were born. They still regard themselves as Essex boys and girls, bless 'em.

Many of our problems are caused by this sort of naive bureaucratic tinkering and classifying. Just take a look at the categories on US forms regarding race - they are absolute nonsense, yet no doubt the federal government base policy on the answers.
 
A silly, small further bit of "Alfrediana" -- just encountered, and found irresistible.

A school class were studying the pre-1066 Saxon kings, and were set a homework assignment on Alfred the Great. The teacher said, "please, whatever you do, don't drag in the old story about how Alfred burnt the cakes. I have read that about five hundred times over the years, and I do not need to read it again."

So one pupil submitted a beautifully researched and written essay that concluded: "One day when King Alfred was out walking, he met a peasant woman, who invited him into her house. I am not allowed to say what happened next."
 
amyasleigh said:
So one pupil submitted a beautifully researched and written essay that concluded: "One day when King Alfred was out walking, he met a peasant woman, who invited him into her house. I am not allowed to say what happened next."

:lol:
 
rynner2 said:
Is the Mosquito the greatest warplane of all?
The Spitfire is more famous but, discovers Jasper Copping, the de Havilland Mosquito can claim to be the plane that won the war

...

The title of tonight’s show makes a bold claim on behalf of the Mosquito, but Williams has marshalled strong support for the aircraft.
Eric “Winkle” Brown, a wartime test pilot, tells him: “I’m often asked, what type of aircraft saved Britain. My answer is that the Mosquito was particularly important because it wasn’t just a fighter or a bomber. It was a night fighter, a reconnaissance aircraft. A ground-attack aircraft. It was a multi-purpose aircraft.”

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/worl ... f-all.html

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the- ... ritain/4od

I saw the documentary last night, and although I thought I was fairly familiar with the mozzie, the fact that it could be fitted with a sub-busting gun was new to me, as was the fact that it could land on aircraft carriers! 8)
Now, a documentary about 'Winkle' Brown himself, with footage of Mozzies at sea:

Britain's Greatest Pilot: The Extraordinary Story of Captain Winkle Brown

Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown, 95, recounts his flying experiences and adventures up to and during the Second World War in this documentary illustrated with archive footage and Captain Brown's own photos.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... nkle-brown

First shown: 3 June 2014
Duration 60 min.
 
rynner2 said:
Stilton celebrates as it is confirmed as home of the famous cheese
Home staff

Celebrations were in full swing yesterday after the village of Stilton was named as the official birthplace of the blue-veined cheese [pictured at a May Day celebration].

...

Nigel White, of the SCMA, said: “There are still many missing links within Stilton’s history and we appreciate all the work the villagers have put into this research.”

Stilton cheese is protected by EU legislation and Blue Stilton is made only in six licensed dairies across Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire. Now Mr Landy hopes to challenge the EU licensing laws.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 843635.ece

Stilton campaigners hope 'cheesy shoe' will help PDO battle

A shoe with a "Stilton wedge" heel is the latest tactic by the Cambridgeshire village of Stilton to get its blue cheese officially recognised.
Richard Landy is leading Stilton's campaign against an EU law stating it can only be produced in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

He asked resident Lorna Grey, a design student, to make the "prototype" shoe.
"Stilton makers produced Stilton perfume once, but we thought a Stilton shoe was a bit quirkier," he said.

In 1996, the Stilton Cheesemakers' Association achieved Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status for blue Stilton from the European Commission.
That meant it could only be produced in the counties of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire where it is thought the cheese originated.

However, Mr Landy said 18th Century documents proved Stilton cheese originated in its namesake Cambridgeshire village.
An application to have "Stilton's Village Blue" recognised by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was rejected in October.

Campaigners have since met with Defra and George Eustice, minister for farming, food and the marine environment, and plan to reapply.
In the meantime, Mr Landy hopes the cheesy shoe will help promote the village's product.

Miss Grey, 19, a footwear design student at De Montfort University, said: "I was a bit shocked when I was given the brief but I'm really happy with the result.
"It's not actually made of cheese. I used a variety of materials to make the shoe and painted the wedge to make it look like real cheese
"It's a prototype and a bit funny to walk in but I'm sure I'd get the hang of it eventually."

Mr Landy said: "The cheesemakers' association use all sorts of things like perfume and a stilton dress to promote their product.
"We've got a cheesy shoe.
"It could be seen as a slightly dodgy choice because although the idea of cheese and feet goes together, it's not usually in a good way.
"But Lorna's got a foot in both camps. She's studying in Leicestershire but she's from Stilton, so we think it's a good choice." 8)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ca ... e-28351825
 
rynner2 said:
rynner2 said:

"Stilton makers produced Stilton perfume once, but we thought a Stilton shoe was a bit quirkier," he said.


I disagree. I believe that a stilton shoe is positively every-day-wear compared to stilton scent. And I write as a fan!
 
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