Blog Posts
The Gregorian Calendar and Britain's Lost Eleven Days
2 September 1752 (read time: 5 mins.) When Britain finally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, eleven days simply vanished. The public was baffled. The taxman was not. Some things never change.If you had lived in Great Britain o…
Captain James Cook and the Art of Careening
11 June 1770 (read time: 5 mins.) Heading north, Captain James Cook and the HMS Endeavour hit a reef. Holed and limping into a small river estuary, there was only one option left: the venerable art of ‘careening’. Imagine…
Harold Habgood and St Clement Danes
31 July 1944 (read time: 4 mins.) Harold Habgood served in the RAF during World War II. In July 1944, Habgood’s Lancaster was shot down over eastern France. Within two days, 31 July 1944, Habgood was executed by the Gestapo.If…
Here’s to Weary Dunlop, a true Australian hero
12 July 1907 (read time: 2 mins.)Colonel Sir Ernest Edward "Weary" Dunlop, senior medical officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps, born on this day, was captured by the Japanese and sent to the infamous Burma-Thailand Railway in 19…
Armin Faber—Where the Focke-Wulf am I?
23 June 1942 (read time: 2 mins.)Armin Faber was an Oberleutnant in the German Luftwaffe and a Focke-Wulf pilot. He had clocked up many hundreds of hours flying as an instructor before his posting to Morlaix in Brittany.In Brittany, …
Why St Peter's School Remembers Charles Rolls
2 June 1910 (read time: 2 mins.)Why St Peter's School Remembers Charles RollsBack in 1976, I went to St Peter’s School in Bournemouth, spending seven very happy years playing rugby and gaining friends who I’m still in touc…
The Bombe's Blind Spot—Tacit Knowledge
14 March 1940 (read time: 8 mins.)Alan Turing’s masterpiece, The Bombe, was installed at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire on 18 March 1940 and changed the course of World War II. It broke the Enigma code, but it couldn’t do i…
Churchill and the Anzacs
25 April 1915 (read time: 2 mins.)The Australian and New Zealand Air Corps (ANZAC) landed at Gallipoli during the First World War on 25 April 1915. Their task was to take control of the Dardanelles (or ‘Strait of Gallipoli’)…
Chris Moon and the Khmer Rouge
10 June 1993 (read time: 3 mins.)Chris Moon (MBE) was working for the Halo Trust, clearing landmines in Cambodia. On 10 June 1993, he was taken prisoner by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, the most feared and brutal regime in the country's histor…
Closing Winston Churchill's War Rooms
16 August 1945 (read time: 5 mins.)The limited ventilation and perpetual occupation in Winston Churchill’s War Rooms left a distinctive staleness in the air, compounded by the constant fog of cigarette and cigar smoke. This wasn&r…