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Henry Clay Frick - greedy industrialist but stunning art collector
Frick home in Pittsburghlater the Frick Art & Historical CentreHenry Clay Frick (1849-1919) was born to comfortable Mennonites, in West Overton, a rural community in SW Pennsylvania. He was the...
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history of Belarus until 1995 - unifications, divisions and changing loyalties
Belarus and its 5 neighbouring countriesI knew the history of Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia very well, from school, university and family. But I knew precious little about Belarus (pop 9.5m)....
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Best history book read in 2020-1: readers' choices
The Library: A World History, 2013by James Campbell and Will PryceThis book was not selected by my readers, but I enjoyed itFrom fast-paced spy thrillers and moving family sagas to dramatic historical...
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Emily Roebling, heroic engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, New York
Emily Warren (1843-1903) was born in New York to Sylvanus Warren, a New York State assemblyman and his wife Phebe. Teenage Emily moved interstate to study at the Georgetown Academy in Washington DC,...
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Strahan Western Tasmania - from brutal convict colony to beautiful port
Strahan Visitor Centre, front of the wharf and Huon Pine Sawmill behindHells Gates and Cape Sorell Lighthouse The area around Macquarie Harbour in SW Tasmania was home to the Toogee Aboriginal people...
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London's fire station architecture - still functioning, new purposes or...
Belsize Fire Station Individual sleeping spaces for fire fighters below groundAfter London’s Great Fire 1666, insurance emerged. Families and businesses paid a fee to an insurance company to insure...
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Square dancing, from the USA to Australia
Square dancing teams, c1950 CaliforniaAmericans loved square dancing in the 1930s which grew out of traditional folk dance in the American West and out of folk dances in Scotland. American servicemen...
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Icehotel in Northern Sweden - an exhilarating art experience
The Story of Icehotel tells that Yngve Bergqvist did not want to spend the rest of his life working for a big mining company in Kiruna Lapland, Sweden's northern city. Bergqvist was an outdoorsman so...
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Free school lunches for poor British children - from world-leading programme...
The difference between deserving & undeserving families in Britain was established in the Poor Law 1834. The deserving poor were hard workers who were struggling through no fault of their own. So...
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French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen - the world's greatest
Lenglen leapt across the tennis court with graceSuzanne Lenglen (1899-1938) was born in Paris. As an asthmatic, young Suzanne took up sport because father Charles wanted to make her stronger. Papa...
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Australian heritage architecture: Morpeth Courthouse (1862->) and Museum...
From the 1820s on, rapid development in NSW's Hunter region saw the growth of trade and commerce on the Hunter River. This development also increased the population in Morpeth, 37 ks north of...
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The greatest art dealers in Europe and the U.S
Alex Greenberger discussed History’s10 Dealers Who Changed the Way Art Is Shown and Sold. I’ve already liked 8 of these dealers in my blog, so I thank Alex for his other 2 stars and photos.Edith...
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violent Red Summer in the U.S 1919-21: Tulsa and other cities
storming the Omaha courthouseIn the U.S, the Red Summer reign of racial terror arrived post-WWI. With an economic recession and the rising of the New Negro, determined Blacks would no longer...
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Brilliant British train ambulances 1914-18 - thank goodness wounded men were...
Many thanks to "Rapid Relief by Rail", History of Medicine, 2021. Trains had already been used in the C19th and early C20th, in the Crimean War, American Civil War and Boer War. But railways weren’t...
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Strasbourg’s Dancing Plague of 1518 - the devil, mass mania or ergot poisoning?
Pieter Brueghel the YoungerPeasant Wedding Dance, 1623Private collection, WikiStrasbourg’s Dancing Plague of 1518 was not the first. Previous dancing plagues had involved people who were in towns and...
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Faberge is coming to London in 2021!!!
Carl Fabergé (1846-1920) was born into a St Petersburg family that created jewellery. Young Carl, trained in Russia and Germany, was in the right place and the right time. When he took over the family...
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How appealing was the Rosie The Riveter campaign for U.S women in WW2?
We Can Do It! 1942by J Howard MillerNorman Rockwell Museum, Massc350,000 women joined U.S’s Armed Services, serving at home and abroad. As encouraged by Eleanor Roosevelt, and impressed by the...
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Charles Bedaux, the French-American ally of Nazi Germany and Vichy France?
Parisian Charles Bedaux (1886–1944) worked a series of menial jobs before he moved to U.S in 1906 at 20. There he worked digging tunnels under New York’s East River. Thank you History Grand Rapids...
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Who invented and adapted burekas?
For centuries, börek had been the food of nomads. Cooked over campfires, it had been carried in kits from Modena to the Maghreb or Barcelona. Though it got onto royal tables, it was a culinary witness...
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Lord's, the centre of world cricket.
The Hambledon Cricket Club played in Hampshire, until the club moved to Dorset Fields in Marylebone becoming Marylebone Cricket Club/MCC in 1787. The first match took place that year and by 1788, the...
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