Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i History Extra

“History is being made all the time, but in Britain we do seem to be living through a moment of particular significance for our national story. This issue goes on sale just a few days before Brexit is due to take place, and though much may have altered by the time you read these words, we still thought it would be a good opportunity to draw some historical parallels with the events of 2019. To that end we’ve asked a group of experts to describe five previous episodes when Britain’s relationship with its European neighbours was dramatically altered – from the Roman empire to the Munich crisis. You’ll find that on page 59. Another subject dominating the news agenda recently has been the rise of anti-Semitism. It is, of course,…

For the people of St Joseph, Missouri, the evening of 3 April 1860 was one to remember. For months, a consortium of local businessmen had been working on plans for the United States’ first high-speed mail service, with a network of riders to carry post from the Midwest to the booming new state of California, on the Pacific coast. They called it the Pony Express. And from the moment the first rider departed that evening, to the blast of a cannon and cheers from the watching crowds, it became part of American legend. The origins of the Pony Express were a fascinating lesson in technology, migration and commercial opportunism. The key figure was a stagecoach boss called William Hepburn Russell, who realised that individual riders could carry letters westward much…

“Richard I died at the age of 41 without having sired a legitimate heir. The Lionheart’s untimely demise thus cleared a path to the crown for his much-reviled younger brother, John. Some chroniclers suggested that, while on his deathbed, Richard designated John as his successor, but the strongest claimant in terms of lineage was their nephew, the 12-year-old Arthur of Brittany. As a result, questions of legitimacy dogged John’s early reign. These deepened after 1203, when he was implicated in Arthur’s murder. The flaws in John’s character soon became apparent. He was a dangerously unpredictable monarch, distrustful, petty and malicious, and lacked the political judgment and martial genius of his forebears. John proved incapable of defending the Angevin realm forged by his predecessors – which once stretched from the Scottish…

The 280s AD found the Roman empire in trouble, seriously destabilised in the west by the external threat of raiding Germanic ‘barbarians’ – Saxons, Franks and Frisians. The outlook in Britain seems to have been brighter, though. As a key exporter of grain to the continent and with a booming agricultural economy, the province off mainland Europe’s north-west corner appears to have been regarded as something of a safe haven. To repel seaborne attack, the Romans built defensive fortifications on both sides of the English Channel. A surge in villa-building seems to have been linked to the movement of wealthy Gallic and Romano-British populations to the relative calm of southern Britannia. Yet by the end of the decade, Britain too had been pitched into deep crisis – one that caused…

Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age Transformed the West and Shaped the Present by Philipp Blom Picador, 336 pages, £20 When John Evelyn observed the frozen Thames in early 1684, he was amazed by the streets of shops, sporting competitions and even the printing press that had been set up on the ice. The frozen river was a marvel, a place of excitement, entertainment and fun. Despite living at the end of a profoundly religious age, in which thunderstorms, comets and freak weather events were routinely interpreted as the manifestations of divine wrath, Evelyn struck a more secular chord. No longer were shocks in the natural world interpreted, as they might have been a century previously, as punishments for England’s sinful ways. For Evelyn, whatever had caused the exceptional…

Ancient sites Egypt’s Valley of the Kings TV Channel 4 Scheduled for Sunday 24 March It’s approaching a century since Howard Carter located the tomb of Tutankhamun, yet the boy king continues to fascinate us. One reason for this – as the first in a four-part series following the work of archaeologists over an excavation season in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings reminds us – is that there’s still so much we don’t know about his life and times. Researchers use new technology to demonstrate how Tutankhamun’s tomb stayed hidden for so long, and the programme eavesdrops as a long-lost box of treasures comes to light. Bricks on the border The Wall TV PBS America Scheduled for Monday 1 April As Donald Trump battles to get the money to construct…

1 Bevis Marks Synagogue LONDON Where Jews have worshipped for 300 years London boasted the largest Jewish community in medieval England, and its only Jewish cemetery until 1177. Bevis Marks Synagogue in Cheapside was built much later, in 1701, but has held regular services since, making it Britain’s oldest synagogue in continuous use. Inside is a spectacular Classical-style ark containing the Torah scrolls, and seven striking hanging brass candelabra. • sephardi.org.uk/bevis-marks 2 Manchester Jewish Museum MANCHESTER Where a synagogue became a museum This building, completed in 1874, was formerly a synagogue for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, or Sephardim, who had been expelled from their countries and came to Britain. It is the oldest surviving synagogue building in Manchester and now serves as a museum about Jewish settlement in the area…

David Olusoga I have discovered that people want to commune with the ghosts of past residents and owners of their homes, to discover their names and something about their lives. • David tells us about Britons’ growing fascination with the history of their homes on page 38 Kim Wagner I wanted to explore the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 not as an isolated event but in the context of the British colonial mindset, and violence of the empire, in the 19th and 20th centuries. • Kim considers what the Amritsar Massacre can tell us about the British empire on page 50 Kelcey Wilson-Lee Medieval princesses weren’t the powerless pawns that we have come to expect. Their position provided the opportunity for extraordinary influence, but also brought heavy expectation to act for…

A collection of aerial photographs dating from 1945–2009 have been made available online by the University of Cambridge. Described as the ‘historical Google Earth’, the images – many of which were taken by former wartime RAF pilots – demonstrate how Britain’s landscape has changed over time. This picture, taken in July 1948, shows Caerphilly Castle in Glamorgan. You can see more aerial images from the collection at cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/landscapehistories/1…

Stonehenge bluestones transported by land Archaeologists have claimed that the Pembrokeshire bluestones used to construct parts of Stonehenge may have been transported to Salisbury Plain over land rather than by sea, as previously believed. The study, published in the journal Antiquity, found that some of the stones were taken from the northern part of quarries in the Preseli hills. This would have made transporting them over land easier than by water. 50 ancient Egyptian mummies found in Minya Egyptian archaeologists have discovered 50 ancient mummies – including 12 children – during excavations of four burial chambers in the desert province of Minya, south of Cairo. Cut out of the rock, the 9 metre-deep chambers probably belonged to members of an important middle-class family who may have lived during Egypt’s Ptolemaic…

Anthony Cummings (Letters, February) complained about the myth that lone pilots fought against impossible odds and stopped the invasion during the Battle of Britain. The myth is indeed nonsense, as the RAF had more pilots and more suitable fighter planes. The RAF should have been classed as the favourite to win, fighting on home ground – a big advantage. The other myth is that Hermann Göring, the Luftwaffe commander, threw away an easy victory by calling off the attacks on the Chain Home radar stations too soon and not adopting Adolf Galland’s free-roving fighter tactics. With regard to the radar stations, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict that the British could have sent out dummy signals when the pylons were damaged, and meanwhile they also had plenty of…

1 Szubin, March 1943 No home run for Allied fliers Forty-three Allied airmen, under the command of the indefatigable escaper Harry ‘Wings’ Day, tunnelled out of Oflag XXI-B near Szubin, 150 miles north-west of Warsaw. Not one of the escapers made a ‘home run’ to Britain, and all were recaptured, along with a further 809 PoWs on the run from other camps, 8,281 absconding foreign workers, and 4,825 others wanted by the police. Wings Day was transferred to Stalag Luft III, where he helped Roger Bushell mastermind the Great Escape. Despite later being imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Day survived the war. 2 Eichstätt, June 1943 A fleeting taste of freedom On the night of 3–4 June, 65 Allied PoWs escaped from Oflag VII-B in Bavaria through a tunnel that…

Emerging confidence Self-portrait, aged 30 by Nicholas Hilliard, 1577 One of the most prominent artists of the 16th century, Nicholas Hilliard trained as a goldsmith before turning to miniature painting. His talent was clear and by around 1571, aged about 24, he had become miniature painter to Elizabeth I, creating exquisitely detailed portraits of the queen and well-known courtiers such as Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. “Miniature portraits served a similar function to that of photography,” says Elizabeth Goldring. “Their diminutive size meant they could be placed in a locket or carried around as a visual reminder of a loved one.” In 1576, Hilliard travelled to France to serve as court painter to the Duke of Anjou, youngest son of Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici. “This likeness,…

How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr The Bodley Head, 528 pages, £25 “America has never been an empire,” claimed George W Bush on the presidential campaign trail in 1999. He was, of course, wrong. Yet his comment reflected the fact that Americans see themselves as a part of a nation forged in reaction to empire, rather than as empire builders themselves. Daniel Immerwahr’s fascinating new book seeks to amend that view by offering a history of the United States that goes beyond an examination of the nation’s united states to look at its territories, colonies, occupied zones and bases. While the United States has often been accused of imperialism in an informal or economic sense, the focus here is firmly…

Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics by Rachel Reeves IB Tauris, 320 pages, £18.99 Based upon a wide range of sources and interviews, Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for Leeds West, has written a lively and fascinating book about the first 100 years of women in the Houses of Parliament. The first woman to take her lonely seat in parliament, in 1919, was Viscountess Nancy Astor, a Conservative. “I find a woman’s intrusion into the House of Commons as embarrassing as if she burst into my bathroom when I had nothing to defend myself, not even a sponge,” harrumphed Winston Churchill, an attitude that was all too common among his male colleagues. The plucky Astor soon learnt how to deal with such sexism, especially when other women, such as…

The hugely popular A House Through Time (BBC Two, April) returns for a second series, this time focusing on a Georgian house in Newcastle. Turn to page 38 to read presenter David Olusoga’s reflections on why we are fascinated by house genealogy. Meanwhile, Pilgrimage: The Road to Rome (BBC Two, Friday 5 April) sees celebrities – including athlete Greg Rutherford and Irish singer and politician Dana – attempt to travel the final leg of the Via Francigena pilgrim route from the Swiss Alps to Rome. Among the highlights on Radio 4, listen out for episodes of In Our Time dealing with poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (Thursday 21 March), the Danelaw (Thursday 28 March) and the Irish famine (Thursday 4 April). On PBS America The Queen Mary: Greatest Ocean Liner (Thursday…

EXHIBITION AND EVENTS Cold War season The National Archives, Kew 4 April–9 November - 020 8876 3444 • nationalarchives.gov.uk/coldwar The National Archives is launching a Cold War season this month, examining life in Britain during this turbulent era. Launching on 4 April – the 70th anniversary of the formation of Nato – the programme of events will mark several Cold War milestones, including the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November. The season opens with an exhibition, Protect and Survive: Britain’s Cold War Revealed, which features a range of Cold War documents. Items on show include political memos, spy confessions, civil defence posters and even a letter from Winston Churchill to the Queen. The exhibition also explores what it was like to live under the threat…

WHAT TO PACK Comfortable shoes for scrambling around the sites, and – for any time other than summer – warm clothes for chilly evenings in the mountains. GETTING THERE If you have the time, it is wonderful to arrive in Patras by boat from Venice, then pick up a hire car. There are direct flights to Kalamata from the UK in season, or year-round to Athens. BEST TIME TO GO My favourite times are spring and autumn, when you may have wonderful places to yourself, although at Easter the crowds become part of the experience. The downside is that fewer places are open, it can be cold and wet, and only the hardy will want to swim in the sea! WHAT TO BRING BACK Food and drink, definitely. Olive oil…

1. When it opened in 1965 it was Britain’s tallest building, but its existence was designated an official secret for years. What is it? 2. Who did the 16th-century bishop of London John Aylmer (left) describe as “doltified with the dregs of the devil’s dunghill”? 3. How did Scottish apothecary James Tytler rise to fame in August 1784? 4. Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck, Lely, Kneller. Which of these English court painters was born in England? 5. Who or what did Sir Ewen Cameron shoot at Killiecrankie in 1680? 6. The place where this church stands last sent MPs to the House of Commons in 1555. Where is it? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. The Post Office (or BT) Tower. 2. Women. 3. He became the first person in Britain to fly in…

Swiss Malakoffs Melted cheese is one of life’s guilty pleasures, so I was delighted to discover that there’s a historic dish that combines this calorific concept with the dark art of deep frying. Comprising a ball of Gruyère on top of a crispy bread base, the malakoff is said to have been invented at the end of the Crimean War, as Swiss mercenaries – triumphant (and hungry) from battle – returned home from the siege of Sevastopol. The name itself is a homage to the Malakoff Redoubt, which was stormed by French forces on 8 September 1855, effectively bringing the siege to its conclusion. Today, malakoffs are popular along the northern shores of Lake Geneva, where they can be enjoyed as an appetiser with a glass of white wine. They…

The death of Richard I on 6 April 1199, writes the historian John Gillingham, “was the decisive turning point in the history of the Angevin empire”. For five years, the Lionheart had been pushing back his rival Philip II of France, reconquering much of Normandy and consolidating his hold over Aquitaine. But then, in March 1199, fate brought him to the little castle of Châlus-Chabrol, south of Limoges. It was a pitifully obscure sort of place; for Richard, though, it was to prove fatal. Historians have argued ever since about why Richard chose to besiege the castle at Châlus. One legend suggests that he had been attracted by stories of buried treasure, but he probably saw the castle as a step towards domination of the Limousin region. In any case,…

“There’s a lot of buzz at the moment on social media about public history and the role of the public historian. I was intrigued by the tale of the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, who became a global hit at the Davos summit where he accused the attending delegates of flying in on private jets while ignoring the key issue: taxation of the rich. Now, he has created another memorable viral moment in an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, whom he called “a millionaire funded by billionaires with a conservative agenda”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fox binned the interview. In the leaked footage Bregman said he “went to Davos to speak truth to power – and I’m doing exactly the same right now”. Of course, this is not the first time a…

Can Winston Churchill still be considered a hero? @sf_lang The question is wrong. What is in question is our search for heroes rather than heroic moments. To save both Britain and the world from Nazism while staring down defeat is breathtaking heroism. It doesn’t efface his faults but neither do they efface the heroism of that moment. @gharman12 Am torn on this. In regard to his bulldog spirit displayed during World War Two, I would say yes. But... we have to have honest discussion and debate on Churchill’s views on empire, including his disparaging comments about India and Gandhi. @Megan35055855 I think we focus on the areas that we want to focus on. We don’t always like looking at these influential people in any sort of negative way. He’s a…

Everyone knows what happened at Runnymede in June 1215. Furious, outmanoeuvred, crippled with vice, King John was obliged to seal a document – Magna Carta – guaranteeing the liberties of his subjects. Or at least so it used to be taught. Historians these days are a lot more cautious in declaring quite what changed as a result of Magna Carta. However, there has always been a much clearer consensus over John himself. The king, in the words of a contemporary chronicler, “was a very bad man… brim-full of evil qualities”. Or as William Stubbs, greatest of King John’s Victorian biographers, put it, John was “the very worst of all our kings… polluted with every crime that could disgrace a man”. Through military incompetence, John lost most of his family’s lands…

Appeasement is one of the dirtiest words in modern political parlance. Politicians are regularly accused of “appeasing” terrorists, criminals and vested interests, which is assumed to be a bad thing. It is generally forgotten that appeasement of Europe’s Nazi and fascist dictators was originally the official policy of Neville Chamberlain’s government – and moreover that it was wildly popular with his own Conservatives, the Labour opposition and the majority of the public at large. One of the many merits of Tim Bouverie’s gripping narrative history of the appeasement era is that he repeatedly shows, with contemporary evidence, that Chamberlain boasted overwhelming support for his attempts to appease Hitler. The scales fell from Britain’s collective eyes only at the very last minute, with the Nazi occupation of the rump of Czechoslovakia…

Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle by Clare Hunter Sceptre, 320 pages, £20 Historians have neglected textiles. Embroidery, needlework and weaving have been dismissed as mere decorative arts, or portrayed as low-brow domestic crafts. Shamefully, historians have too often failed to appreciate that, in the monogrammed handkerchief, sampler or quilt are coded literacies. Here are narrative voices to set against written words, fine art, architecture, and the material culture of agriculture and industry, as sources for social and political history. Clare Hunter is on a mission to change this situation. Those neglected literacies are overwhelmingly female. They speak of tradition and legacy, of status and belonging, of aspiration and creation. From the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots to Palestinian refugees, Hunter shows…

The Axeman’s Jazz Ray Celestin (2014) It’s 1919, and a serial killer is on the loose in New Orleans. No one knows where he will strike next but the so-called Axeman sends a letter to the newspapers, stating that he loves jazz so much he will spare anyone who is listening to it. Ray Celestin’s debut novel is a vivid, atmospheric crime story in which three unlikely detectives, one of them a young Louis Armstrong, stumble towards the truth about the murders. Jazz Toni Morrison (1992) Echoing the music which provides its title, both in its prose and its narrative structure, Jazz is one of the finest works by the Nobel Prize-winning African-American author. Set mostly in Harlem in the 1920s, but moving back in time to the Deep South…

It was not the classical sites that first lured me to the Peloponnese. Instead, it was Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, an account of his late 1950s hike through Mani’s arid landscape of mountains and sea. Leigh Fermor slept on the rooftops of crumbling tower houses, the evocative remnants of centuries of blood feuds, and was thrilled to his romantic core. Even in the 1950s, however, this beautiful peninsula in southern Greece wasn’t quite as remote as Leigh Fermor presented it. When he wrote about the village of Kardamyli, his future home, he edited out the factory chimney of the old olive-oil works. By the time I got to Stoupa, just south of Kardamyli, in the 1990s, it was a package-holiday destination, with village rooms rather…

Q What is the difference between a castle and a fort? William Strickland, Edgbaston, Birmingham A In terms of what the words meant originally, there is very little difference: both are ultimately derived from Latin, with castle coming from the word castra, meaning ‘camp’ or ‘encampment’, and fort from fortis, that is, strong. Hence in the Middle Ages we find writers using words such as castra, castellum and fortalitium more or less interchangeably to describe the same sort of fortified buildings, just as people today will use ‘castle’, ‘stronghold’ and ‘fortress’ to mean the same thing. In modern times, the two words have acquired more precise meanings, which have served to distinguish them. The main difference lies in their residential function. A castle could be defined as the fortified residence…

Lorenzo da Ponte, born Emanuele Conegliano, was an Italian poet and librettist (a writer of words for musical works), who famously collaborated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on several important pieces. Born into a Jewish family, he was baptised in his teens and briefly served as a priest, but was expelled from the Venice in 1779 for his controversial views and scandalous personal life (after fathering two children with a mistress, he was charged with “public concubinage” and “abduction of a respectable woman”). He then moved to Vienna to become official poet to Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, and went on to write several acclaimed librettos. Following the emperor’s death in 1790, he travelled to London and later to America, where he taught at Columbia College. When did you first hear…