Innholdsfortegnelse for Christmas 2017 i History Extra

“Though it took place more than 600 years ago, the Peasants’ Revolt is an event that speaks to every age. At times like today, when society and democracy seem to be under strain, there may well be lessons to learn from exploring the conditions that drove our medieval forebears to violent rebellion. And that is exactly what this month’s cover feature seeks to do, as historian Laura Ashe considers the motives of the ‘peasants’ who brought bloodshed to the streets of England in the 14th century. Turn to page 20 to read her account. One of the stories that we like to tell ourselves about Britain is that we are an island fortress, resolutely free from invasion since those impudent Normans in 1066. Yet, as the new BBC Four series…

For the people of Hong Kong, Christmas 1941 was one they would not easily forget. A few weeks earlier, Japanese troops had launched a massive offensive against the British colony. With no chance of reinforcements, Hong Kong seemed doomed, and within days the attackers had fought their way into the heart of Kowloon. As the British fell back, looting broke out across the colony. Father Thomas Ryan, a Jesuit priest, recalled that local gangs “went to shop after shop and house after house, breaking down the doors and going through every floor and every room swiftly and violently. The slightest resistance brought savage attacks that were often fatal. Earrings were torn away brutally; fingers were chopped off when rings did not slip off easily; and a blow with an iron…

1 He donated his salary to charity Already a wealthy man when he took office in 1961, Kennedy donated his $100,000 presidential salary to charity. Beneficiaries included the Cuban Families Committee and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America. 2 He secretly recorded White House conversations Richard Nixon was not the first president to secretly record meetings at the White House. The first practical White House taping system was actually installed by JFK. The Kennedy tapes comprise around 260 hours of audio. 3 He won a Pulitzer Prize In 1957, Kennedy was a Pulitzer Prize winner for his work Profiles in Courage, a volume of short biographies describing acts of integrity and bravery by eight senators in history. 4 He received last rites on several occasions The first Roman…

What’s your favourite historical book, film or TV programme of the year and why? @LucyOwen01 Taboo. While not historical in the traditional sense, the feel, the darkness, the corruption all reflect the darker side of the Georgians. From Prinnie’s gluttony to the horror of the East India Company, Taboo shows the underbelly unknown to Austen @anglosaxonlogic The Great War in Numbers was a splendid visual demonstration of the loss and sacrifice of WWI. I hope they make similar programmes for other wars Tiffany Christman The Last Kingdom is my favourite, in large part because there are so few pieces that cover Alfred and the era leading up to the lands becoming led by (essentially) one king. There is a great deal of historical basis in the series…

Making History RADIO Radio 4 Scheduled for Boxing Day Why were the suffragettes so obsessed with jiu-jitsu? Here’s a clue: their campaigning for the vote exposed them to violence and intimidation. This is just one of the stories explored in a new series of the long-running history magazine show. Also expect reports on the street food on offer in medieval markets, whether Norwich City can lay claim to the world’s oldest football song and, a new item, Top Town History, where listeners compete to prove their town is the most historic place in the country. Presented by Helen Castor and Tom Holland.…

Dunkirk DVD (Warner Bros, £14.99) In 1940, Britain stood on the brink of calamitous defeat. In northern France, the retreating British Expeditionary Force had reached the coast and there was nowhere else to go – unless men could be ferried across the channel. What followed was, to use Churchill’s description, a “miracle” as, improvising madly, the authorities evacuated more than 338,000 men. Christopher Nolan’s fine feature looks at events from three main perspectives: men on the coast desperate to get away; those aboard one of the ‘little ships’; and an RAF fighter pilot taking huge risks. Gradually, these three narratives, taking place over different timescales, converge. It’s an even-handed film, which shows the evacuation as neither an unlikely triumph nor an irredeemable disaster. Instead, Nolan is interested, to a near…

“In around 200 BC when the hillfort was at its largest, there may have been 1,300 people living here” Don’t let the name deceive you. While it sounds as though it might be of medieval vintage, perhaps the domicile of one of Henry VIII’s divorced wives, Maiden Castle is far older. Dominating a hill a couple of miles south-west of the Dorset county town of Dorchester, it represents one of the largest Iron Age hillforts in Europe. More than two millennia on, it remains an awesome, imposing sight, a vast yet elaborate system of ramparts that overlap each other and double-back on themselves. These boundaries would have offered a stern test to anyone intent on breeching them; the steep ditches they form are better described as ravines. The plateau –…

BEST TIME TO GO Yaoundé’s proximity to the equator means heavy downpours during the rainy season of April–November. Visit in mid-December if you want to enjoy the Christmas fairs and the effervescence of Christmas parties. The city’s warmest period is January–April when temperatures average around 30°C. GETTING THERE The cities of Yaoundé and Douala have international airports, with Air France, Swiss Air and Brussels Airlines all offering flights. WHAT TO PACK Walking and dancing shoes are advisable – Yaoundé’s vibrant nightlife will appeal to your sense of rhythm, with some bars staying open all night. Euros and a bilingual English-French pocket dictionary are a must. WHAT TO BRING BACK Le Songo, a very popular board game – a variation of Mancala games that involves strategy and calculation. You could also…

In 1917, Canadians were used to mass death – almost 40,000 of their compatriots had already lost their lives in the First World War – but no one was prepared for the disaster that was about to strike Halifax. • Tim tells the story of the blast that wrecked a bustling Canadian port a century ago on page 50 In a context of trade, war and international treaties, nations are never as independent as they think. Negotiation has been just as important as war in the making of the modern world. • Tom examines how US diplomats extricated their new nation from the British empire on page 27 While researching my upcoming book, I came across the strange dance epidemics of the 14th and 16th centuries. I then began to…

When did Native Americans first come to Britain? The earliest recorded visit of an Indigenous North American dates to c1498 when a merchant vessel returned to Bristol with three Inuit men. In c1531, a Brazilian ‘king’ was presented to Henry VIII, while in 1576 and 1577 English explorer Martin Frobisher brought first one and then three Inuit captives back from his voyages. The latter group included a child and a woman, the first of each documented in Britain. At least six of these eight people died either within a short time of their arrival or on their homeward journey. There could have been encounters prior to 1500, as a result of the Viking settlements in the Scottish islands and what is now Canada. There is also a long history of…

“Imperial-era assumptions that Rakhine Muslims were essentially foreign underpin the view of the Rohingya across Myanmar today” DR JONATHAN SAHA While the name ‘Rohingya’ is currently much disputed and appears only fleetingly in the archival record, there is little doubt that a distinctive Muslim population has resided for centuries in the Rakhine region that is today at the border of Bangladesh and Myanmar. When Myanmar (also known as Burma) was incorporated into British-ruled India, Indians from across the subcontinent came to the country for work or trade. In Rakhine, British officials struggled to distinguish between the pre-existing Muslim population and recent migrants from Bengal. However, because the British viewed Myanmar’s population as being made up of racial groups with distinct biological inheritance, they saw Rakhine Muslims as an essentially foreign…

 “There are so many historical anniversaries and events to look forward to next year – not least, next autumn, the British Library’s great exhibition on the Anglo-Saxons. In this 600-year period, many of the key features of English culture took shape, from kingship and assembly politics (the root of our parliamentary system) to English poetry, literature and art. And many aspects of the story are international. Think of the charismatic Emma, Norman queen of England; Boniface and the missionaries who converted Germany; and Alcuin, the star of the first European renaissance under Charlemagne. England has always been shaped by ‘abroad’: by Ireland and the rest of Britain; by Europe – and even further afield. One story that has long fascinated me is that of Theodore and Hadrian, which forces us…

1 Wolfson History Prize Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel Christopher de Hamel casts an expert eye over 12 medieval manuscripts, which are usually kept under lock and key. He describes them with such relish that it’s impossible not to be infected with his enthusiasm for the dusty old tomes. 2 Longman-History Today Prize Æthelred the Unready by Levi Roach In his accessible and engaging second book, Levi Roach rehabilitates the reputation of one of the most evocatively named Anglo-Saxon leaders, arguing that Æthelred’s motivations weren’t all bad. 3 Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize How to Survive A Plague by David France Documenting activists’ battle to combat the 1980s Aids crisis, France uses personal stories and insider insights to illuminate the story of a crucial civil rights campaign with…

With the new year fast approaching, a bunch of intriguing books are already in the publishing pipeline. From Diane Atkinson’s Rise Up Women! to June Purvis’s biography of Christabel Pankhurst, the centenary of women’s suffrage promises a plethora of new titles. I’m looking forward to Patricia Fara’s A Lab of One’s Own, on female scientists in the First World War. Those interested in the Second World War should look out for Antony Beevor on Arnhem and James Holland’s take on how one Big Week in February 1944 shaped the battle for the skies. For a more literal bird’s-eye view of the conflict, I’m also curious to read Gordon Corera’s fantastically titled Secret Pigeon Service. Come springtime, two new books from Civilisations presenters Mary Beard and David Olusoga promise to be…

Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes The Templars by Dan Jones The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain by Ian Mortimer The Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor Koh-I-Noor by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand Belonging: The Story of the Jews 1492-1900 by Simon Schama To Catch A King: Charles II’s Great Escape by Charles Spencer The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens Air Force Blue: The RAF in World War Two by Patrick Bishop Accurate at time of printing…

An artist’s model, an author, a scientist and a murdered girl are our cast of characters VICTORIAN Lucy Worsley High-concept history books rarely deliver what they promise. However, in Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum (Fourth Estate), Kathryn Hughes gives us exactly what she says she’s going to: five detailed histories of Victorian body parts. Hughes looks at a pair of lips, a stomach, a hand, a dismembered body and a beard, each belonging to a different Victorian, and through them produces a revelatory history of a century. An artist’s model, a lady in waiting, an author, a scientist and a poor murdered little girl are our cast of characters, and while we get a quirky sidelight on the careers of the famous, we also…

‘Twelfth cake’, the precursor of Christmas cake, was cut on the last night of festivities The Sweet Makers: A Christmas Treat TV BBC Two Scheduled for mid-December Sweet treats are so integral to Christmas feasting traditions, that it’s tempting to assume people must always have eaten the same kinds of dishes over the festive period as we do today. In truth, as a one-off special of The Sweet Makers reveals, recipes and traditions evolve – or even get lost in the mists of time. Take ‘twelfth cake’, the precursor of Christmas cake, which, let’s face it, many of us aren’t sure when to serve. In the medieval era, there was no such doubt. As its name suggests, the cake was cut on the last night of the extended Christmas festivities.…

In 2001, Radio 4 launched a new show built around a simple idea: famous people discussing a now-dead figure they admired. Fast forward to 2017, and as current presenter Matthew Parris outlines in the three-hour Great Lives Four Hundred and Counting (Radio 4Extra, Saturday 9 December), the show has become a Radio 4 staple. The 400 episodes Parris looks back on include the moment when a fuming Christopher Hitchens (great life: Leon Trotsky) walked out of the show because he was unhappy with its “bleeding Tory” presenter. Another Radio 4 mainstay, In Our Time, continues up to Christmas, with Melvyn Bragg and guests discussing Thomas Becket (Thursday 14 December) and Beethoven (Thursday 21 December). On Yesterday, Machines of War traces the technological leaps behind modern weaponry, including episodes on the…

1 Tre’r Ceiri LLYN PENINSULA, NORTH WALES Where 150 Iron Age houses remain The setting for Tre’r Ceiri (‘Town of the Giants’) couldn’t be more dramatic: 450 metres above sea level atop the mountain of Yr Eifi and overlooking the Irish Sea. Fantastically preserved, there are remains of 150 stone dwellings and some ramparts are still close to their original full height. coflein.gov.uk 2 Yeavering Bell WOOLER, NORTHUMBERLAND Where the buildings were once pink On the edge of the Cheviot Hills, this is a twin-peaked hill around which a 12-acre hillfort, the largest in the North East, grew. When first constructed, its buildings, made using the local andesite stone, would have been pink in appearance before turning a weather-beaten grey. northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk 3 Cissbury Ring WORTHING, WEST SUSSEX Where the sea…

Q Did people really earn a living diving through the sewers in Victorian Britain? Dave Aked, Canberra, Australia A Yes, and some of them made a good living too – at least according to Victorian journalist Henry Mayhew in his magisterial London Labour and the London Poor (1851). From research carried out in the 1840s, Mayhew reckoned that there were around 200 professional sewer-hunters in London. They called themselves ‘shore men’, ‘shore workers’ or more colloquially, ‘toshers’, tosh being slang for copper. Toshers’ rewards could be considerable. Usually operating in groups of three or four, they wore coats with several deep pockets and carried long hoes, as well as sacks to put scrap metal in. If they were lucky, they could find coins of all denominations and occasionally even silver…

Nuremberg Lebkuchen Coming from a Bavarian family, I’ve always enjoyed Lebkuchen as a festive treat on Christmas eve. This German gingerbread can be traced back to 14th-century Franconian monks, who placed the dough on communion wafers to keep their cakes moist and stop them sticking to the tray. The treats later received a royal seal of approval. In 1487 Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III presented almost 4,000 children with Lebkuchen – decorated with his own portrait. Many different recipes exist, but crucial to them all is the special spice blend (see ingredients). This particular method is for Elisenlebkuchen. Named, it is said, after the daughter of a Nuremberg gingerbread baker, it’s a wonderfully rich, nut-laden recipe that contains little or no flour. Ideally you should leave your Lebkuchen in a…

“Like Shakespeare, Charles Dickens wrote for all time and his characters are as vivid now as when he first put pen to paper more than 150 years ago” Charles Dickens is widely regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. He wrote a string of bestselling novels and short stories including The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations and invented some of literature’s best-known characters. His books are still in print and have been adapted for stage and screen. He was buried at London’s Westminster Abbey. When did you first hear about Charles Dickens? When I read Oliver Twist at school aged 11. As soon as I entered Dickens’s world I was hooked. I went on to read all his books and I think they…

Shields Daily News 31 October 1906 Before the suffragettes began their nationwide bombing and arson campaign in desperate pursuit of the vote, they tried many nefarious tactics to convince wavering or opposing members of parliament to support their case for the universal suffrage of women. In 1906, the Shields Daily News uncovered a story that the government had attempted to hush up. Reporting that “it has just leaked out”, the paper investigated the rumour that a well-known Liberal MP who represented a Scottish county had recently been imprisoned in his own house by a couple of ardent suffragettes. The honourable member had been dining in his town house when he was told that a lady wished to see him on urgent business. Entering the hall, he saw not one lady…

I have been rereading with interest and pleasure Shompa Lahiri’s article on the Victorians’ love of things Indian (Cricket, Curry and Cups of Tea, October), including her reference to the election to parliament of Dadabhai Naoroji in 1892 and Mancherjee Bhownagree in 1895. It is worth recalling that the first MP of Indian, albeit Anglo-Indian, descent was David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre (1808–51), one of two Whig MPs elected by the borough of Sudbury, Suffolk in 1841. They held their seats in the House of Commons for nearly a year, but in April 1842 their election was declared null and void for “gross and corrupt bribery”. Dyce Sombre was later declared a Chancery ‘lunatic’, a verdict he fought during the rest of his life. I commend Michael H Fisher’s study of…

The cries that floated up to the king and his ministers in the Tower, as the city burned below, sounded as if “all the devils of hell were amongst them” On the night of 13 June 1381, the 14-year-old king Richard II looked out from the Tower of London to see his city burning, the streets in chaos. Thousands of armed men and women from the countryside, self-appointed representatives of the ‘Commons of the realm’, had poured into the city over London Bridge, hunting down the lords and officials they called traitors for their corruption and oppression of the poor. They targeted and attacked symbols of power, and the property of men who wielded it. They broke into the Marshalsea and Fleet prisons, releasing all the prisoners, and ransacked the…

Imagine the perfect Anglo-Saxon king. A man of intellect, a philosophical warrior-king who is devastating in battle yet magnanimous in victory. In the popular imagination, that man is King Alfred. He shines like a beacon out of the ninth century: a kind of Anglo-Saxon superhero, who single-handedly defeated the Vikings and united England under his rule (871–99). But there’s a problem: this sounds too good to be true. And as a historian, when something sounds too good to be true, I want to take a closer look. Alfred is, of course, remembered as ‘the Great’. Yet despite what you might think, he was only given this epithet in the 16th century. Alfred suited the tastes of the time – as a scholar, philosopher and statesman he looked very much like…

Abraham Lincoln was a compulsive story teller, although the grandeur of the stern marble figure of his memorial in Washington DC, and the sombre language of his great speeches, obscure his natural sense of humour. He was the first United States president to make jokes and laughter tools of the office, and no other occupant of the White House has since matched his embrace of the jocular. John F Kennedy, widely admired as a humourist, held back for fear of appearing unstatesmanlike; Ronald Reagan, a skilful raconteur, was open to the charge that his humour was a substitute for thought. Lincoln, by contrast, suffered few of the inhibitions felt by later presidents. Lincoln’s jokes helped define his career as politician, lawyer and war-burdened president. His laughter coexisted with self-absorbed contemplation…

 The attitudes of the long dead play out in all our lives today and, recently, historians seem to be increasingly confident about communicating this aspect of the ancient world. This year, several expansive works have celebrated the power of the ancient mind as well as the material. Some Scythian women wore gold earrings mounted with human teeth I enjoy a book that wears its heart on its sleeve and Catherine Nixey’s empassioned account of Christian destruction of classical sanctuaries and artworks, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World (Pan Macmillan), reminds us that zealous prejudice has been an unfortunate companion to the story of civilisation. Once Christianity was institutionalised as the official religion of the late Roman empire, pagan works and buildings were burned or vandalised, as…

 For those interested in the tumultuous worlds of the medieval and Tudor periods, 2017 brings yet another 500th anniversary celebration. We have reached the moment when, five centuries ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door, now popularly celebrated as the ‘beginning’ of the Reformation. Unsurprisingly, a heady number of publications have been timed to capitalise on the commemoration of this event, notably two outstanding works by historian Peter Marshall. The first, Heretics and Believers (Yale), is a grand, sweeping view of the Reformation’s impact in England, perhaps the first large-scale revisiting of a ‘people’s history’ approach to the religious upheavals of the Tudor period since Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars (1992). Marshall’s range and use of primary source material are equally impressive. A heady…

It hasn’t escaped our notice that, despite being the festive season, the pages of this issue of BBC History Magazine are full of some particularly terrible episodes from human history. And I’m afraid that my first two global history book recommendations strike an equally sombre tone. As an appetiser, Walter Scheidel’s The Great Leveler (Princeton University Press) looks at centuries of economic inequality around the world before concluding that there is a way in which societies can escape it – but it unfortunately involves death, disease and starvation. Yes, your choice – assuming that you’re not a hunter-gatherer, who has only lived in an equal society in the sense that everybody is equally poor – is for the rich to get richer, or for your world to be riven with…

Home Front RADIO Radio 4 Weekdays Running through December, daily drama Home Front – based in part on news stories from the era – continues to chart life in the UK, exactly a century ago. Football is a recurring theme this month, and in particular the fictional Marshalls’ Ladies football team, made up of ‘munitionettes’ working at the Marshalls factory on Tyneside. This was an era when women’s football was hugely popular, a factor in the FA eventually banning it! Christmas 1917 was important in the development of the sport. On Boxing Day, a game sometimes cited as the first-ever women’s international football match was played: Ireland v England in Belfast.…

“Colours, flavours and sounds define Cameroon’s capital city, Yaoundé” A combination of colours, flavours and sounds defines Cameroon’s capital city, Yaoundé. Located in the south west of the country, the city spreads over seven majestic hills covered mostly by small dwellings and scattered buildings, surrounded both by busy roads bustling with street vendors and by colourful and luxuriant equatorial vegetation. The humid tropical climate renders physical activity challenging, yet walking is the best way to discover what the city has to offer. Leaving the main roads, it is not unusual to stumble upon makeshift shops or a football pitch between houses. But if you are keen on colourful and vibrant market places, Le Marché du Mfoundi offers a selection of fruits and vegetables from nearby villages. Other big markets such…

‘Jingle Bells’ was originally written as a song for Thanksgiving, not Christmas. Under the title ‘One Horse Open Sleigh’, it was an immediate success for its American composer, James Lord Pierpoint, in 1857. However, it was some decades before the tune became associated with the Christmas season. ‘Jingle Bells’ went on to become one of the most popular and familiar of all festive songs. In December 1965, it was the first tune broadcast from outer space when astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra, on board the Gemini 6 spaceship, played a surprise rendition on a harmonica and set of bells. In 1946, George Orwell sent the British Council his recipe for Christmas pudding. Rather improbably, the author of Animal Farm was commissioned by the council to write a pamphlet on…

2018 ANNIVERSARIES 1. 1,000th Which battle, probably fought in September 1018, helped fix the border between Scotland and Northumbria? 2. 700th Which brother of a famous Scottish king was defeated and killed at the battle of Faughart in Ireland on 14 October 1318? 3. 500th What did hundreds of the inhabitants of Strasbourg inexplicably start doing in July 1518? 4. 450th Which royal fugitive arrived in England on 16 May 1568? 5. 400th Who or what was thrown out of a Prague window on 23 May 1618? 6. 300th Which British administrator and fast food pioneer was born on 13 November 1718? 7. 200th Which monstrous novel was published anonymously on 1 January 1818? 8. 150th Which African capital was stormed by an Anglo-Indian task force on 13 April 1868?…