Archive for the ‘History’ Category
25 years after the Chernobyl disaster
April 26th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
On 26 April 1986, exactly twenty-five years ago today, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility in what is now Ukraine exploded. It was – and remains – the largest civil nuclear disaster in history. I once met a trade union official who went to Chernobyl shortly after the disaster to check on […]
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The first man in space
April 12th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Fifty years ago today, the first man went into space. At the time I was 12 and found the whole thing enormously exciting. The Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin became one of the most famous men in history and today we remember his feat. Of course, the space race between the USSR and the USA was […]
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Word of the day: sesquicentennial
April 4th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
The word refers to a period of 150 years or the 150th anniversary of an event. We are about to commemorate in a week’s time the 150th anniversary of a major historic event, so you will see the word used and reports on the anniversary – remember where you saw it first. The event I […]
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A history of Lebanon
March 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
As regular readers of NightHawk will know, I have recently returned from a trip to Syria and Lebanon – you can read my account and view photographs here. During the holiday, I was reading a book on the modern history of Lebanon entitled “Beware Of Small States”. I’ve only now managed to write a review […]
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The Greek scholar Hypatia
March 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
This week, I saw a film called “Agora” which tells the story of the fourth century female philosopher and mathematician Hypatia. The film is a disappointment [my review here] but the life it portrays is fascinating [a short biography here].
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Which is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world?
February 21st, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Of course, it depends what you mean by ‘city’ and by ‘continuously inhabited’ but, however you define these terms, there are many claimants for the title. When I visited Israel, I went to Jaffa just outside the modern city of Tel Aviv and this place claims to have been inhabited for the last 4,000 years […]
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The largest empires in history
February 10th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I continue to enjoy my evening class in International Relations led by our lecturer Dr Dale Mineshima-Lowe. Last week, we looked at India and Pakistan and this week we discussed Russia. We were told that the old Russian empire was the third largest in history. But: which was the first and which was the second? […]
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World health over the last two centuries …
January 26th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
… explained in just four minutes here. The clip is from a BBC4 television programme called “The Joy Of Statistics” which I enjoyed when it was broadcast a few weeks ago.
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The sinking of the “Laconia”
January 10th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I’ve now managed to watch the two-part, three-hour television drama on the sinking of the “Laconia” which was broadcast in Britain on BBC2 on 6 and 7 January. The film is a British-German co-production written by Alan Bleasdale. It tells the remarkable story of how, on 12 September 1942, the German submarine U-542 sank the […]
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The People’s History Museum of Manchester
November 11th, 2010 by Roger Darlington
I was up in Manchester this week to attend the inaugural professorial lecture of my younger brother Ralph at the University of Salford [my blog posting here]. I took the opportunity to spend some time with my step-mother who still lives close to the city. She took me to a remarkable new museum in Manchester […]
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