Today in History: Birth of Rembrandt van Rijn.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born July 15th 1606 in Leiden during The Dutch Golden Age (1585-1702) where the Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe. It led […]
Today in History: The death of Roman Emperor Hadrian.
Relatively early in the complex state that was the Roman Empire, a man named Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrianus), became the fourteenth Emperor of Rome. He inherited a healthy empire from […]
The Song That Saved America: Composer Trevor Kowalski on “The Battle Cry of Freedom”.
We are thrilled to have Trevor Kowalski, an American composer, pianist, arranger and songwriter, here today to talk about one of the most important songs in United States history called The […]
Historical paintings: Battle of Kosovo of 1389 by Adam Stefanović.
There were two significant battles in the Ottoman conquest of the Serbian state in the fourteenth century. The first of these was the Battle of Maritsa that took place in […]
Today in History: Birth of Erich Maria Remarque.
On June 22nd, 1898, Erich Maria Remarque was born in the city of Osnabruck, in the federal state of Lower-Saxony, in Germany. He is the famed author of the classic […]
Today in History: The end of the Falklands War.
History tells us that Britain has ruled the Falklands more or less uninterrupted since 1833, and its claims to it remained somewhat undisputed until the early 1940s, when a succession […]
Today in History: Indictments put an end to Al Capone and his empire.
On the 12th June 1931, Eliot Ness and his “Untouchables” and the Justice Department, charged notorious gangland chief Al Capone issuing him with indictments for violations of US prohibition laws. […]
Forgeries, hoaxes and just plain humbug! (Part 2)
Werewolf of France – Jean Garnier (1603). The first serious references of werewolves are often commonly attributed to the Middle Ages. Of course, it’s not to say there aren’t any […]
Today in History: D-Day and the battle for Normandy begins.
One of the most talked about days of the last century occurred on 6th June 1944. It is known as D-Day. It was the first day of Operation Overlord, which saw […]
A symbol of medieval madness: The Salem Witch Trials.
A horrible incident of foul gossip in 1692 resulted in twenty people being executed and more than two hundred people being accused of witchcraft, before common sense eventually prevailed the […]
Anzac Day, 103 years on, Lest We Forget.
The amazing image above is the last photograph of the Australian Infantry Division’s 11th Battalion before being sent off to the infamous Gallipoli campaign of 1915. These early recruits, 703 in total, […]
Peace in Ireland?: The Good Friday Agreement.
The twentieth century saw some of the worst political violence in Northern Ireland, between 1969 and 1999, where almost some 3,500 people lost their lives. The root of the conflict […]
Historical Painting: Allegory of the 1755 Earthquake by João Glama Ströberle.
A massive earthquake some believe to up to the magnitude of 9.0, struck the city of Lisbon during the morning of church commemorations, of the holy day of the Feast […]
Today in History: The discovery of the statue of Venus de Milo.
One Hundred and ninety-eight years ago today, on the April 8th 1820, the statue of Venus de Milo was discovered by a farmer called Yorgos Kentrotas, inside a buried niche in the […]
Madness, hysteria, panic and Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds.
In the first half of the twentieth century, the radio ruled the air waves in homes around the world. An astonishing 80% of Americans, for example, had a radio in […]
A palette rich with colour: Celebrating Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Ernst Gombrich famously said in his book ‘The Story of Art’: “There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.” If we are to look at art through […]
