Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i History Extra

Seventy-five years ago this month, the largest amphibious invasion in history took place as more than 150,000 Allied troops landed in France in just a single day. That day, 6 June 1944, was one of the most dramatic and decisive moments in the Second World War, and one that still provokes questions and debates in the 21st century. In this month’s issue we’ve included a special D-Day supplement, which explores several different aspects of the Norman- dy landings. You’ll discover how the day unfolded hour-by-hour, why General Montgomery deserves credit for masterminding operations, and, in our cover feature, the tremendous, but little-known human cost of training for Operation Overlord. A much earlier part of French history hit the headlines shortly before we went to press with the news that the…

For several hours on the evening of 15 April, medieval art and architecture was trending on social media as historians, and many more besides, watched Notre-Dame, France’s great cathedral, going up in flames. The sight of this iconic Gothic monument ablaze led to desperate real-time commentary as Twitter and Facebook posts chronicled its history, and the priceless art and relics that might be lost. Medieval historians including Janina Ramirez shared their sorrow at the news: “A building like this – a heart of history, a point of passions, a cultural conduit. How do you even start to mourn for something like this?! Tragic…”, she tweeted. As the sun rose the following morning, there was relief that, despite the collapse of the medieval ‘forest’ roof, so much had survived, including the…

£20,000 A-ring-thought-to-contain-abraid-of-Charlotte-Brontë’shair-has-been-valued-at­£20,000-by-experts-on-the­BBC’s-Antiques Roadshow.­ The-ring-(left) also-bears-aninscription-ofthe-author’sname-and­ her date of death,-in-1855­ 5.9million The-number-of-visitors-to-Tate­Modern-last-year,-making-itthe-UK’s-most-popular-visitorattraction-of-2018.-The-British­Museum,-which-held-the-titlefor-11-years,-welcomedaround-5.8-million-visitors 50 Around-50-mummifiedanimals,-including-mice-andfalcons,-have-been-found-ina recently-unearthed-tomb-in­Egypt.-Inscriptions-indicatethe-tomb-was-built-for-aman named-Tutu-and-hiswife,-Ta-Shirit-Iziz,-about­2,000-years-ago 34,000 Archaeologists have -identified-the-first-prehistoric figurative-cave-art-to-befound-in-the-Balkan­-peninsula.-The-paintings,­ which-include-a-bison-andtwo-possible-anthropomorphic-figures,-could-be-up-to­34,000-years-old…

There are so many jaw-dropping things happening in our political debates at the moment, especially on social media. In particular, many prominent women in public life, some of them MPs, have endured appalling attacks not for their opinions, but simply because they are speaking out as women. This reminded me of a story I first came across some years ago when I made a TV series telling the story of England through one village: Kibworth in Leicestershire. In the 18th century, Kibworth had a famous academy of dissenters – nonconformists who, barred from going to Oxbridge because of their religious beliefs, educated themselves. Anna Laetitia Barbauld was born here in 1743, the daughter of the local headmaster. In Kibworth, she learned Latin, Greek, French, Italian and many other subjects thought…

Originally founded to protect the East India Company’s interests in Bengal, Fort William in Calcutta surrendered to Bengali ruler Sirãj al-Dawlah on 20 June 1756. After years of rising tension, the aggressive young Sirãj had decided to reassert his authority. Now he found himself with perhaps 70 prisoners of war, as well around 80 hangers-on who had been sheltering in the fort. The man in charge of the fort had been John Zephaniah Holwell, a Dublin-born surgeon who now worked for the Company as Calcutta’s chief magistrate. When Holwell surrendered, Sirãj promised that no harm would come to his men. But that night, Sirãj’s men decided to put the prisoners in the fort’s small dungeon, which measured roughly 14 by 18 feet. By Holwell’s account, conditions in the so-called Black…

“Men are not hang’d for stealing Horses, but that Horses may not be stolen.” Those were the words of the politician and political writer George Savile. What he was alluding to was the fundamental principle of English law in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Without a police force or a large standing army, England relied upon something else to maintain order and protect property: fear. And in the late 17th century, English law began to grow ever more fearsome. In the 1680s, there were around 50 offences in English law for which a man or woman might be “hang’d”; a century later, there were more than 200. These offences formed what later generations dubbed the ‘Bloody Code’. If you want to understand what a society really values, take a…

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LIFE & CAREER Pliny the Younger was born in Comum, modern Como in northern Italy, in around AD 62. He became a lawyer in a civil court in Rome, a successful senator, an amateur poet and ‘curator of the bed and banks of the river Tiber and of the city’s sewers’. In his later years, he was governor of Bithynia-Pontus province, in what is now northern Turkey. Pliny hoped for children, but sadly his wife Calpurnia suffered a miscarriage, and there is no evidence she ever conceived again. VESUVIUS ERUPTION Pliny the Younger was 17 when Vesuvius erupted and overwhelmed Pompeii, Herculaneum and the surrounding towns. When the enormous volcanic cloud first appeared in the sky, he was at a villa in Misenum, in the Bay of Naples, with his…

The Victorians have long been viewed as a buttoned-up, prudish, even puritanical bunch. In his latest book, Palaces of Pleasure, Lee Jackson explodes this notion by revealing them at play. He takes us on a tour of typical Victorian leisure pursuits – the gin palace, music hall, dancing room, pleasure garden, exhibition ground, seaside resort and football match – emphasising the breathtaking variety available. One stereotype does hold true: the Victorian obsession with social class. Choosing a suitable activity was a subject of anxiety, for the boundaries between working-class and middle-class entertainments were blurry at best. Gin palaces and music halls became more elegant as the century progressed, projecting a semblance of respectability. Some magistrates felt that venues’ appealing exteriors were particularly pernicious: a kind of wolf in sheep’s clothing.…

Ever since her mysterious death by poisoning in Cape Coast Castle in 1838, the memory of Letitia Landon’s life has tended to be overshadowed by the dramatic circumstances in which she died. In this biography, Lucasta Miller understandably begins at the end, with the discovery of Landon’s body, before returning to the start to explain how one of the most famous British poets of her era found herself, at the age of 36, in an old slaver’s castle on the west coast of Africa, and to address the riddle of whether her death was a case of accident, suicide or murder. Landon’s life turns out to have been just as mysterious as her death. In the wake of her passing, her friends published memoirs designed to protect her memory from…

CHILDREN’S FICTION Forgotten histories Part of a series chronicling British immigrants through history, Diver’s Daughter tells the story of Eve, a young east African girl living with her mother in the slums of Elizabethan London. In a tale that is based on real events, the pair set out on a dangerous journey to persuade one of the African divers who helped salvage the Mary Rose to dive the wreck of another ship, said to be full of hidden treasures. ILLUSTRATED Polar exploits The drama of Shackleton’s 1914–17 transantarctic expedition is brought to life in this illustrated narrative – 100 years after it was first published. The perilous journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific is told in Shackleton’s own words and illustrated with extraordinary paintings by expedition members, along with…

What are the overall themes of your lectures? I am interested in the place of law in our public life. All democracies have devised methods of constraining the action of the state, constraining the action of majorities who ultimately control the state in a democracy. There are two main mechanisms: one is representative politics and the other is law. Over a number of years, the role of representative politics has declined and has become much less respected by the public at large, and this has created a gap which has been largely filled by law. I think it’s worth asking what the effects of this rather striking change have been. Why has this happened? It’s happened for a number of reasons, of which the most important is rising expectations of…

In this exhibition, around 60 images taken by the Liverpool City Police from 1940–41 reveal the devastation the Blitz wreaked on the city of Liverpool. The images, such as the example below, taken in 1941, will be accompanied by audio interviews and written memories by those who lived through the terrible onslaught. Liverpool’s port and the surrounding areas were key targets for German bombers during the Blitz. In Merseyside, some 4,000 civilians were killed, with 10,000 homes destroyed and 70,000 people made homeless. Blitzed: Liverpool Lives Museum of Liverpool / From 14 June / Free entry liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/blitzed…

Churchill War Rooms London As dawn broke on D-Day, one of its main architects was working in bed in a bunker beneath the heart of Whitehall. This warren of claustrophobic corridors and stuffy offices was Churchill’s wartime HQ. Look out for Winston’s chair in the cabinet room – its arms scratched to pieces by his signet ring – and a facsimile of a letter from George VI begging the PM not to accompany the invasion force. iwm.org.uk/visits/churchill-war-rooms The D-Day Story Portsmouth Based at a major embarkation point for the cross-Channel assault, this is the only museum in Britain solely dedicated to D-Day. Exhibitions include the Overlord Embroidery – an 83-metre-long tapestry depicting the events in vivid hand-stitched detail. theddaystory.com IWM Duxford Cambridgeshire Air support played a crucial role in the…

IN PROFILE One of Norway’s most famous sons, Fridtjof Nansen was an explorer, zoologist and diplomat. In 1888, he led the first expedi- tion across the Greenland icecap. Five years later he made an  attempt to reach the geographical north pole aboard the Fram , a ship designed to withstand being imprisoned in ice through the Arctic winter as it was carried towards its destination by ocean currents. Beyond exploration, Nansen was an advocate for Norwegian independence from Sweden. He was also the League of Nations’ high commissioner for refugees and the recipient of the 1922 Nobel peace prize for his work on behalf of those displaced by the First World War. “He was innovative and tough,›and he knew adventure wasn’t just a personal, ego-driven thing. He had vision” When…

James Holland I always used to feel very critical of Montgomery, but when I began looking at D-Day and Normandy in detail I struggled to find much wrong with his plan. It made me think about Monty quite differently. James speaks up for the military prowess of Bernard Montgomery on page 17 of our D-Day supplement Daisy Dunn I’ve always been fascinated by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Pliny the Younger was an eyewitness to it. My question was, what happened to this young man after the disaster? Daisy charts the career of Pliny, lawyer, senator and orator, on page 29 Jared Diamond Pakistan is suffering from severe problems, El Salvador has chronically been locked in strife. Just as with people, there are plenty of examples of countries…

The-last-survivor-of-the-final-ship-tobring-slaves-from-Africa-to-the-US-hasbeen-identified-on-film.-Dr-Hannah­Durkin,-a-lecturer-in-literature-and-filmat Newcastle-University,-traced-Redoshi (renamed-Sally-Smith)-to-an-18-secondappearance-in-a-1938-US-public-information-film-called-The Negro Farmer: Extension Work for Better Farming and Better Living – the-only-knownfilm-footage-of-a-female-transatlanticslavery-survivor. In-an-article-published-in-Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies,-Durkin-writes-that­Redoshi-was-most-likely-smuggled-from west-Africa-on-the-slave-ship-Clotilda.­ Slave-importation-to-the-US-had beenbanned-in-1808,-but-illegal-shipmentscontinued-on-ships-including-the­ Clotilda,-which-arrived-in-Mobile-Bay,­ Alabama,-in-1860,-where-it-was-scuttled soon-afterwards.-Redoshi,-thought-tohave-been just-12-years-old-whenshe was-captured,-was-forcibly-married to another-captive-and-the-pair-weresold-to-a-banker-from-Bogue-Chitto,­ Alabama.-Redoshi-remained-in-the-state until-her-death-in-1937. Prior-to-Durkin’s-discovery,-the-lastsurvivor-of-the-Clotilda-was-believedto be-a-west-African-man-named-Oluale­Kossola,-who-died-in-Alabama-in­1935 under-the-name-of-Cudjo-Lewis.­ His-story-was-recorded-by-the­-African-American-author-Zora-Neale­Hurston,-who-interviewed-Kossolain 1927.-Her-resulting-work-was-finallypublished-in-2018-as-Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”, bringing-Kossola’s-story-to-publicattention.-But-Hurston,-Durkinclaims, knew-of-Redoshi’s-existence­ even as she was declaring Kossola to be the-last-survivor-of-the-Clotilda voyage.-As-a-result-of-Hurston’ssilence, Redoshi’s-experiences-haveremained-relatively-unknown.…

Wat Tyler’s name may be one of the most famous in English history, but remarkably little is known about him. In the spring of 1381 he was an obscure Kentish man, unlikely to trouble later historians. But then, amid growing discontent at efforts to enforce a highly regressive poll tax, the Peasants’ Revolt broke out in Essex, soon spreading to neighbouring counties. By early June the rebels had elected Tyler as their leader, and on the 13th they swept into the capital. The next day, they stormed the Tower of London. With Richard II just a 14-year-old boy, authority seemed about to collapse completely. Then, late on the afternoon of 15 June, came the dramatic turning point. At Smithfield, Richard and his officials rode out to meet the rebels. According…

King John is given a bad rap After much effort in researching my historical novel, King John: Two Time Loser (he lost in the attempt to reclaim his French lands in 1214, and then lost much of his treasure at the Wash, East Anglia, in 1216), I have come to the conclusion that the nickname ‘Bad King John’ is unfair. Unlike his big brother Richard I, who spent only six months of his 10-year reign in England, and virtually bankrupted the country with his crusades, where he massacred 2,700 PoWs and had England fork out a huge ransom to free him from his royal kidnappers, John was responsible for several good things. He was an efficient administrator and, according to Josephine Ross (Kings and Queens of Britain): “He was not…

For our first-ever Chester History Weekend, we’ve assembled some of Britain’s finest historians, authors and broadcasters to speak about everything from Ancient Egypt to postwar Britain. Dan Jones (left), a perennial favourite at our events, headlines the Friday night, discussing his brand-new book on the Crusades, which he’ll be signing straight after his talk. And then on the Saturday afternoon, you’ll have the chance to hear from another familiar figure: Michael Wood (right), one of Britain’s best-loved TV presenters and, of course, our own monthly columnist. He’ll be offering a distinctive take on the Peterloo massacre on its 200th anniversary. A second broadcasting legend to appear on the Saturday is Jenni Murray (left), the longstanding presenter of Woman’s Hour reflecting on some of history’s most important and inspiring women. This…

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What was the nature of crime and justice in Restoration England? Crime and punishment were different then. The justice system was less concerned with establishing an individual’s guilt than upholding the monarch and safeguarding the social system. If a man killed his wife, it was murder and could bring him to the gallows. But if a woman killed her husband, it was considered subversive: the crime was ‘petty treason’, and the punishment was to be burned alive. How did you go about researching this historical period? By reading primary sources, such as the diaries of Pepys and Evelyn; staring at contemporary maps and plans until my eyes were sore; delving in libraries and the dusty recesses of the internet; and walking the ground and looking for clues. From Westminster and…

The title of this book feels like a mistake. It’s not just that Socrates’ image was less lothario than snub-nosed satyr. The main problem is less his looks than his character: the idea of Socrates being “in” any sort of emotion whatsoever feels odd. In the ancient texts, we rarely see him in a passion, or a rage – or indulging in any kind of state at all except a detached interest. Socrates was the perfect philosopher. Even when sentenced to death, he was philosophising to the end. More mirror than man, his brilliance was to make us look at our own emotions; he didn’t ask us to look at his. And so, in the main, we don’t. We are missing out, as the Oxford academic Armand D’Angour shows in…

The second Roman emperor, Tiberius, said that ruling Rome was rather like holding a wolf by the ears. Writing about the Roman empire is much the same. There are casts of thousands: the emperor, his immediate and wider family and his palace court, with all their jealousies, intrigues and treacheries; the provincial governors and their courts, not to mention armies; the provincials, from Britain to Iraq, the Rhine Danube to the Sahara; a timescale reaching from the first emperor, Augustus (emperor from 27 BC), to the last, Constantine XI Palaiologos (1453), ruler of Rome’s eastern empire. And that’s just the politics: philosophy, the arts, society, religion and much else are still to come into play. Finally, there is a very great deal of evidence for some periods, but relatively little…

The charity Action for Children has released images of England’s early children’s homes in a bid to trace the descendants of some of those sent there. England’s first children’s home opened in Church Street, Lambeth, in 1869, and from there they spread across the country. The image here shows children taking lessons at a home in Birmingham between 1882 and 1900. For more information and images, visit actionforchildren.org.uk/archive Have a story? Please email Jon Bauckham at jon.bauckham@immediate.co.uk…

Chartres On 7 September 1020, a fire devastated Chartres Cathedral. Bishop Fulbert built a vast new structure, but disaster struck again in 1194. All but the crypt and part of the western facade burned. So began construction of Notre-Dame de Chartres, one of the most compelling expressions of French Gothic. Canterbury Canterbury has endured several fires since Pope Gregory the Great established his seat there in 597. But 5 September 1174 saw its worst. Fire ripped through Archbishop Anselm’s ‘Glorious Choir’ making room for a vast setting fit for the newly canonised St Thomas Becket. York Minster A clutch of infernos led to rebuilding at York Minster throughout the medieval period, while the current structure faced blazes in 1753 (when workmen left hot coals alight), 1829, 1840 and, most recently,…

50 YEARS AGO Stonewall. One word conjures images of resistance, joy, repression, pain, activism and community. On 28 June 1969, police yet again raided the bar of New York’s Stonewall Inn, threatening and harassing its LGBTQ patrons under the pretence of alcohol license violations. This time they pushed back. The raid instigated days of riots against the police in the surrounding streets. In the face of swelling numbers of protesters throwing coins, bottles and stones, police at one point even retreated inside the bar until reinforcements arrived. Stonewall has since become a global icon for gay liberation. But how well do we know the stories of the LGBTQ people who were there? Contrary to the 2015 film Stonewall, we know that rioters included drag queens, trans folks, femmes and people…

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PLINY ON… THE LAW COURTS The silver-tongued lawyer who talked his way to the top Pliny the Younger’s career took off shortly after the tragedy of Vesuvius. Within months of his brush with death, he was in Rome, embarking upon a legal career in the ‘centumviral court of 100 men’. This was a system arranged over four tribunals, where the 100 (or, more often, 180) men would gather in a basilica in the Roman Forum to deliberate over civil cases. Pliny spoke before them for the prosecution or defence, and settled disputes over wills. Pliny despaired of those who took bribes for attending the court “as openly as if they were being given in the dining room”. He also claimed that a rival in the court itself was guilty…

In September 1946, the industry thought the average woman needed six pairs of fully fashioned nylon stockings a year. 1 in 500 The Retail Distribution Association predicted that only 1 in 500 women would get a pair of the stockings in time for Christmas 1946. In December 1946, there were five types of nylon stockings available. Retail prices ranged from 8s 3d to 9s 10d, while buyers had to surrender three clothing coupons for two pairs – effectively a month’s worth of clothes rationing. A dress was worth seven coupons and a pair of women’s shoes five. 5,900% At the time, smuggled American nylons fetched £3 a pair in Atlantic ports and £6 elsewhere – a whopping 5,900% markup on the legal US ceiling price of 2s a pair, representing…

• 16 December 1485 Catherine is born to King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile • 14 March 1489 Catherine is betrothed by treaty to Prince Arthur of Wales • 14 November 1501 Catherine marries Arthur (below) in St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Arthur dies in Ludlow Castle, Shropshire on 2 April 1502 • 11 June 1509 A little less than two months after Henry VII’s death, Catherine marries King Henry VIII at Greenwich Palace • 1 January 1511 Henry and Catherine’s son, Henry, is born, but dies within nine weeks • 9 September 1513 James IV of Scotland is defeated, and dies, on Flodden Field, while Catherine is “regent and governess” for Henry • 18 February 1516 The future Queen Mary I is born to Catherine and Henry • 1527 Henry is first attracted to Anne…

Our fourth Winchester History Weekend promises to be the best yet, bringing together many of the biggest names in popular history, alongside a number of experts who’ve never before appeared at our events. Following the success of her talk in 2018, we’re delighted to welcome back Lucy Worsley (right). On this occasion, she’ll be speaking about the legendary author Jane Austen, who’s buried in Winchester Cathedral. Also returning this year is Max Hastings (left), whose upcoming history of the Dambusters raid is sure to be one of the autumn’s publishing highlights – and will be the subject of his talk. He’s joined on the line-up by another doyen of Second World War history, Antony Beevor, who will be speaking about Arnhem, 75 years after the disaster of Operation Market Garden.…

Matt Elton: Why did you decide to use ideas from psychotherapy as a way to understand countries' historical traumas? Jared Diamond: My wife, Marie, is a clinical psychologist with a speciality in crisis therapy. As its name suggests, this tackles the effects of a crisis, and the risk that the person will flounder and even take their own life. Marie and her fellow therapists would meet to talk about how clients were doing, who was making progress and what the outcome measures were. It dawned on me that similar measures might also apply to national crises, even if only metaphorically. What factors from personal trauma have you applied to the ways countries deal with national trauma? Anyone who has gone through a personal crisis – everyone, in other words –…

Straumann relates these complex events with remarkable clarity and considerable panache.Rarely has the dismal science been less dismal Nowadays it is commonplace to attribute Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 to the grave economic crisis that had dominated German politics for the preceding two years. It is worth recalling that in the elections of 1928, Hitler’s Nazis polled barely 2.6 per cent of the vote and were widely seen as a fringe grouping of misfits, thugs and ne’er-do-wells. Yet by 1932, the economic crisis – spurred by the Wall Street Crash and Germany’s debt burden – had so poisoned German politics that Hitler and his band of cronies came to appeal to many millions of voters as the country’s least-worst option. However that linkage, though often cited, is rarely examined…

Tim Bouverie on appeasement in the 1930s “Trying to reason with Hitler was always a doomed mission. Another German leader would have been an entirely different kettle of fish, but if you are dealing with a fanatical man who actually worships war, then nothing is going to be enough for him. In the words of one member of the House of Lords, appeasing Hitler was akin to ‘scratching a crocodile’s nose in the hope of making it purr’” Lauren Johnson on why ‘bad king’ Henry VI was revered after his death “He’d always been kind. He’d always been generous. He’d always been loyal. Unfortunate- ly, though, he directed his generosity and his loyalty towards the wrong people. But he did found educational establishments and was concerned for his subjects –…

My ‘classic book’ is Martin Broszat’s outstanding work The Hitler State (1981). Up to his death in 1989, Broszat was one of the foremost German experts on the Third Reich. I read the original German version in the early 1970s when I was beginning the move from medieval to modern history. My copy is still on my shelves, much thumbed, with many marginal notes. I found the book immeasurably valuable in its dissection of the structures of Nazi government. Broszat analyses superbly the inbuilt tensions that underpinned the regime from its outset in 1933. Relations between party and state, between central government and Hitler’s absolutist interventionism, between the judicial system and the political police, and the endless in-fighting among Nazi leaders, are all brilliantly illuminated. Far from establishing clear lines…

More than 100 posters by graphic artist Abram Games – created between 1941 and 1945 during his employment as a poster artist for the public relations department at Britain’s War Office – are on show at the National Army Museum this month. Games saw his artistic role as an opportunity to communicate ideas that might help win the war, as well as bring about social change in Britain. His designs, used to recruit, educate and inform soldiers and civilians, were renowned for their bold colours and ideas. The Art of Persuasion: Wartime Posters by Abram Games National Army Museum, Chelsea / Until 24 November nam.ac.uk/whats-on…

The Open University celebrates its 50th birthday this year. With 170,000 students, it’s one of the largest universities in Europe. Yet it’s also an institution that, thanks to budget cuts, falling student numbers, reports of a leadership crisis and increased competition from online education providers, faces an uncertain future. As this Archive On Four documentary explores, it’s not the first time the institution has faced problems and controversies. Its creation, as a pet project of Harold Wilson, was a tale of the Labour prime minister advocating for the OU when the Treasury declared it to be an unnecessary expense. Indeed, without the tireless work of Jennie Lee, minister for the arts, even Wilson’s support may not have been enough. In addition to exploring the history of the OU, the documentary…

Artefacts, art, photography and film exploring stories of life by London’s rivers, streams and brooks will go on display at the Museum of London Docklands. The histories of several well-known rivers will be examined, including the Effra, Fleet, Tyburn and Westbourne. Each river will be used to highlight a broader theme – such as poverty, industry, religion and activism – exploring how these waterways have shaped London and its inhabitants throughout the centuries. Secret Rivers Museum of London Docklands 24 May–27 October / Free entry museumoflondon.org.uk/ museumlondon-docklands…