Until recently the Clovis hunters, named for the distinctive fluted flint arrowhead they habitually employed (first discovered in Clovis, New Mexico), were believed to be the first human colonists of the Americas, arriving via the Beringian land bridge c. 15,000 years ago. New findings, apparently anachronous, call this hypothesis into... More
The Cluniac movement, founded at Cluny, Saône-et-Loire in France in 910 by the monk Berno, believed that monastic rule had become too lax and was determined to adopt stricter religious practice and spend more time in prayer, following the rule of St Benedict. The Cluniacs were also champions of clerical... More
Founded in 910 by William the Pious, ruler of Aquitaine, Cluny Abbey was (unusually for the era) under direct papal control. The abbey’s independence and emphasis on the Benedictine values of silence, humility and care for the poor made it a leader of western monasticism. Initially, the Abbey was a... More
The Battle of Cold Harbor was the last battle of the Overland Campaign of Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s, a sequence of simultaneous offences against Confederate positions. Cold Harbor was at a crossroads, 10 miles (16 km) north of Virginia’s capital, Richmond. After Union cavalrymen captured Old Cold Harbor... More
With the return of Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik party, to Russia in April 1917, the new provisional government was under increasing pressure to withdraw from the war. Meanwhile, the Allies were urging Kerensky, the Minister for War, to attack the Central Powers and divert vital manpower away from... More
The colonial frontier is the name given to the line of European settlements in North America. The disputed territories were principally between the French and English, as the English expanded westwards, beyond the Appalachian Mountains. By 1700, the French had established settlements in New France, northwest Québec, the Great Lakes... More
In 1555, Medieval ‘Pavage’ grants for the upkeep of roads were replaced by the Statute of Philip and Mary, which required parishes to maintain their local road network through six days annual labour, with Surveyors of the Highways appointed to verify compliance. In the Elizabethan period, faster light carriages began... More
To sustain the war effort of the Viet Cong and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in South Vietnam, supply lines were set up through the mountainous dense jungle along the borders with Laos and Cambodia. The Ho Chi Minh trail followed existing paths hidden beneath the jungle canopies and was... More
Following the American Revolution there was a great outpouring of religious diversity, and many sects, which incorporated notions of utopianism, emerged from the dissenting Protestant denominations that had been founded in America by refugees from persecution in Europe. And essential tenet of many of these sects was the idea of... More
Based on comparative resources, the American Civil War was a mismatch, its conclusion forgone. The actual armed forces were roughly equal in strength at the outbreak of war, but the North could call upon a fighting age male population over four times that of the South. Even more stark were... More
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, following the Mexican War, ceded vast territories from Mexico to the USA, which swiftly posed conundrums to legislators. Firstly, Texas made claims on large tracts of New Mexico territory. Secondly, California, by virtue of the Gold Rush, was transformed from a sparsely populated... More
In April 1944, the south coast of England began its preparations for the D-Day landings, the details of which were kept top secret until only a couple of days before the operation. Numerous marshalling camps, colloquially known as ‘sausage camps’ because of their appearance on maps, were erected to house... More