Archive for the ‘History’ Category
What do you know about the Republic of Salo?
October 19th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I’m currently reading a novel by Martin Cruz Smith titled “The Girl From Venice”. It is set in northern Italian at the end of the Second World War and some of the action takes place in Salo. The relevant Wikipedia page opens as follows: “The Italian Social Republic, informally known as the Republic of Salò, […]
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The great storm in south-east England in 1987
October 16th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Thirty years ago today, a great storm unexpectedly hit the south-east of England (coincidentally a similar storm is hitting Ireland today and Scotland tomorrow). I’ve kept a daily diary since I was 13 (I’m now 69) and I’ve looked up what I wrote for Friday, 16 October 1987: “I was awakened about 4.30 am by […]
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A review of “The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921” by Eric Lee
October 4th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
So many events in history are said to be unknown or forgotten, or at least under-researched and/or under-appreciated, and for me at least this Georgian revolution was one of them. But no more, thanks to this well-researched and lucidly written book by Lee, an American now living in Britain who has wanted to write this […]
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The tragedy of the partition of India
August 6th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Seventy years ago this month, the British rushed through the partition of India to create new two states: India and Pakistan (which is now Pakistan and Bangladesh). In the resultant ethnic violence and migration, perhaps a million people died and up to 15 million people were displaced. Why did this happen and where does partition […]
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What was happening in Britain and the world 50 years ago?
August 1st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
At this time of year, my professional commitments are light, so I sign up for a number of short courses at the City Lit further education college in central London. My fourth such course of this summer was delivered by a lecturer called Alison Appleby and it was titled “Fifty years ago today: the world in […]
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Fifty years since the Six Day Arab-Israeli War of 1967
July 25th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
At this time of year, my professional commitments are light, so I sign up for a number of short courses at the City Lit further education college in central London. My first such course of this summer was delivered by Dr Noman Hanif – UK born of parents from Kashmir – and it was titled “The […]
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A review of the book “Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991” by Orlando Figes
June 30th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is a work that covers a century of revolutionary history in a main text of just over 400 pages written by the well-known British academic Orlando Figes who teaches at Birkbeck University in London. It has the strengths and weaknesses of any non-fiction book that seeks to cover so much ground in such concise […]
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A review of the newly-released film “Churchill”
June 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Winston Churchill had a long and complex military and political career but this film – it could just as easily have been a play – concerns a mere few days in that rich life: the last five days of preparation for Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings in June 1944. As a young minister, Churchill had […]
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MailOnline gives publicity to my book “Night Hawk”
June 12th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I recently did a blog posting about the reprint of my book “Night Hawk” – a biography of Karel Kuttelwascher, the RAF’s greatest night intruder pilot of the Second World War. The book is now starting to receive reviews and the MailOnline web site -the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world – has […]
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How old is humankind and where did it start?
June 10th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Until recently, the answers to these questions were that humans evolved around 200,000 years ago and originated in East Africa. As this article explains: “Scientists have long looked to East Africa as the birthplace of modern humans. Until the latest findings from Jebel Irhoud, the oldest known remnants of our species were found at Omo […]
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