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Was Joseph Kennedy racist before/in WW2?
Patrick Joseph Kennedy (1858–1929) was the son of poor Irish immigrants who married in Boston in 1849. Originally a saloon-owner in Boston who expanded to own a whiskey importation business,...
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Visit architecture in gorgeous Fez.
Fez Carpet marketBob CromwellLet me examine some of the connections between Morocco and Europe I was familiar with. Visitors to the Paros Gallery in Greece should see the Sèvres Imperial Hunting tea...
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Migrants welcome to Australia - Bonegilla
Bonegilla is a rural area on the western shore of Lake Hume in N.E Victoria. The nearest large township is Wodonga Vic, 9 km to the west and c12 km from Albury NSW, on the southern bank of Murray...
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Weimar Republic 1918-33: great culture, great democracy
Pres Paul von HindenburgWikiThe usual image of the Weimar Republic was one of political instability, economic crisis and cultural decadence. That always seemed ridiculous to me since this republic was...
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Janis Fink Ian - what a folk singer!
Janis Fink (1951-) the American singer, was born and raised on a New Jersey farm, Fink was raised by Jewish parents; her father Victor taught music, inspiring her early interest in the piano, which...
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Chocolate lovers: visit Malta
I loved holidaying in Malta but now I know there was much more to learn.DisplayMalta Chocolate FactoryBuilt by the Knights of St John in the mid-C16th on the centrally located Mediterranean island of...
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Fryerstown Vic: historic gold town
Never heard of Fryerstown in Victoria, just a 10-minute drive south from Castlemaine? Neither had I. Yet the locals say this now-tiny town was once home to 15,000 people during the 1850s gold rush,...
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Modernist art glass: Italy & Australia.
When I was doing art history, Art consisted of painting, sculpture and architecture. Even illuminated manuscripts were studied for their paintings, not for their other art forms eg book binding,...
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Favourite babies' names in Australia, 2024
In my community, a newborn baby is named after the last beloved relative, of the same gender, to pass away. Thus I was called Helen after my late grandmother Hinde, and my son was called Peter in...
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Edna Walling's stunning garden designs
Edna Margaret Walling (1895-1973) was born in York, second daughter of William and Harriet Walling. Edna studied at the Convent of Notre Dame in Devon, enjoying exploring with dad and the practical...
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Witches: brutal, religious Matthew Hopkins
Being a good Christian kept a person safe because he/she was guaranteed a place in Heaven. However at some stage Christianity came under threat from an invisible force. Starting among the educated...
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An amazing Negev Desert Zoo just opened.
Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Animal Park in Israel serves as a sanctuary for endangered desert animals and injured local wildlife, and as a home to animals born in captivity that cannot be returned...
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Russian born Yul Brynner's amazing story
Yuliy Borisovich Briner (1920-85) was born in Vladivostok, apparently with mixed ancestry. The mystery began with Brynner's birth, for which he gave dates anytime between 1915-22. He sometimes said...
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Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassination ->
Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe was a big book. Happily once we get to 1848, the year of revolutions across Europe, the book became much more balanced and more interesting. The 53...
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You'll Never Walk Alone Liverpool Ftball Cl
The world of musical theatre seemed a very long way from Anfield Football Stadium in Liverpool. So how did a big, wonderful song from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s show Carousel (1945) end up as a football...
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UK's National Health Service, slow important development
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, originally built in 1933and replaced by the new hospital in 2010.It is one of the largest single-site hospitals in the UKAfter the Boer War, a Committee on...
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Norway's North Pole Expedition Museum
In C19th, exploration and discovering new lands had become a much smaller endeavour as the world "shrank". Instead, exploration looked to the world's more dangerous reaches, even beyond the atmosphere....
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Cimabue art in a kitchen Vs in Le Louvre
A prized C13th painting found hanging over a stove in the kitchen of an elderly woman in Compiègne, north of Paris in 2019. The painting was going to the rubbish tip during her house clearance;...
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historic Halifax, Nova Scotia
I’ve been to Canada a number of times, mainly to Toronto and Montreal for IRC gatherings, and to Winnipeg and Vancouver for family reunions. The Maritimes were lovely, but I didn’t have enough time...
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Australia's national hat, the akubra.
Australian Army hat, wool felt Rising sun badge and puggaree Everything AustralianThe origin of the slouch hat began with the Victorian Mounted Rifles in 1885. The Victorian hat was an ordinary bush...
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1956 - what a year!
Budapest Oct-Nov 1956BBC History Magazine asked historians to select history’s most dramatic year. I expected them to select 476 AD, 1215, 1492, 1914 and 1933, but in my opinion 1956 was by far the...
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WW2 heroes deleted in Pentagon’s purge, NBC News
References to an American WW2 Medal of Honour recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands...
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Best history books published in 2024.
Except for one book below, I have not read any list of best history books, so I relied on the historians in Smithsonian Magazine and BBC History Magazine. Silk: A World History by Aarathi Prasad in...
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Ralph Lauren, still a luxury life!
Born Ralph Lipschitz in 1939 to Jewish immigrant parents Frank (from Belarus) and Frieda Lipschitz (from Poland), Ralph was the youngest of 4 siblings. The family wasn’t rich, living in a poor Bronx...
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Alice Paul: bravest American suffragette
The main U.S organisation fighting for Women’s Suffrage was the National American Women’s Suffrage Association-NAWSA, founded in 1869 by Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton. But over the next decades,...
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