The commander-in-chief of the British army in America was Sir William Howe. His New York campaign of 1776-77 was distinguished by an unerring capacity to miss the rebel jugular. Firstly, having outflanked and encircled Washington’s army at Brooklyn Heights on Long Island, he declined to attack (and probably finish the... More
The German Zeppelin L9 was returning to its base on 14 April 1914, when it was instructed to raid Tyneside. At 19.00 it reached Tynemouth, travelled northwards and dropped its first bombs around Blyth, disgorging a total of 22 bombs. It turned southwards where it dropped eight bombs on a... More
The U-boats, German submarines, threatened Allied ships mainly around the British Isles, the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean. Most of their submarines were in Belgium and German bases, from which they targeted North Sea and Atlantic shipping. There was also a large base in Pola. At first, they torpedoed war... More
Throughout World War I, the people of the Ukrainian territories were split between the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia allowed nationalism in the Ukraine to flourish and Socialist movements established a number of short-lived states. The Ukrainian People’s Republic and the West Ukrainian People’s Republic were... More
The area of modern day Ukraine has always been home to Russian speaking migrants. Throughout the years of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union there were a number of notable periods during which the Ukrainian language was actively discriminated against as part of an effort to promote the propagation of... More
The Protestant Unionist party effectively controlled the political system in Ulster After Irish Independence (1922). The large Catholic minority were excluded by ‘gerrymandering’ of electoral constituencies and suffered discrimination in employment and housing. The police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was heavily Protestant. The Bogside Riots (1969) by Catholics against... More
The Dustbowl symbolized America’s fall from its seeming ‘manifest destiny’ of endless expansion and growth. Caused by massive erosion of critical topsoil through drought and over-farming, 150,000 square miles (388,500 square km) of the Midwest were desertified, producing ‘black blizzards’ that choked cattle and buried farms. The Great Depression, which... More
As with Germany, Italian nationalism was incubated under Napoleonic rule. The Carbonari, an aristocratic secret society, spread insurrection with foreign aid, while Mazzini’s Young Italy movement was grassroots and republican. Rebellions in 1848 were quickly snuffed out, but in 1859 the kingdom of Sardinia annexed Lombardy from the Austrians after... More
The Kings of Gwynedd were the dominant force in Wales from the 9th century, but their own laws of succession, with their realms being divided between their male heirs, repeatedly confounded their ambitions to rule all of Wales. In addition, they had to fend off repeated Saxon invasions, usually from... More
The Marcher Lords of Wales were a throwback to the Norman Conquest, enjoying wide feudal powers, including the right to build castles, administer their own justice and even (theoretically, at least) to declare war. Over the centuries these powers had eroded, through the reversion of lordships (without heir) to the... More
President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act (1862), which directed the Union Pacific (UP) and Central Pacific (CP) to build the US’s first transcontinental railroad. The railroad was to stretch from Missouri to the Pacific, described by a Boston paper as a ‘ruinous space’, both to encourage trade and settlement... More
In 1947, the UN voted for the partition of Palestine to create independent Jewish and Arab sectors. Jews and Arabs in the region had been at odds for decades; while the Zionist Jews sought an independent state, the native Arabs wanted to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular... More