THE ULTIMATE
On this day, January 4th, mathematician scientist Isaac Newton was born, the discoverer of a range of scientific laws and principles such as gravity, planetary motion orbitting around the sun, tidal motion and that light can be split into its component colours of the rainbow.
He was born at Woolsthorpe Manor House, Lincolnshire, England - at that time the calendar siad it was 25th December, but with later changes to the calendar he was born on what we know as January 4th. His theories created a new view of science that dominated scientific thought until the development of the Theory of Relativity by Einstein in the 20th Century. "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." This quote of Isaac Newton's gives credit to the other mathematician scientists who came before him, that enabled him to make his discoevries and theories.
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June 20th this year marks the Summer Solstice the longest day of the year for those in the Northern Hemisphere, it is Midsummer.
This is when the Earth is tilted on its axis on its orbit around the sun, so that the North Pole is at its closest to the Sun, For Arctic regions this means they have continuous sunlight for 24 hours! Whilst the Northern Hemisphere, marks Midsummer, in the Southern Hemisphere - for example, for Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina, it's Midwinter and they are having the their Midwinter, their Winter Solstice. The Summer Solstice in Northern Hemisphere has long been a time of festival and ritual, most famously, at England's Stonehenge, in Wiltshire of Salisbury Plain. There are plenty of other stone mounment aligned with the Solstices across the British Isles, including in Ireland, as well as in Europe, such as in France. Stonehenge, sees hundreds of people attend each year to see the sun rise between one of the stone 'arches' that make the ring of Stonehenge, and over the more distant 'heel' stone outside of the henge. Those that attend may be modern pagan and New Age belief followers, who believe in spirituality associated with nature, many of whom will see themselves as a continuation of an ancient Celtic to Stone Age set of beliefs in Britain that were present before Christianity - they may call themselves Druids. Stonehenge has many numerous theories for why it was built, and how it was built - was it a temple to the sun? was it a place of healing? or was it a place for remembering the dead? Or was it all of these and more? Was it built by magic as suggested by Merlin in Arthurian legend? Or how did the inner smaller 'Bluestones' get from coastal West Wales, in the Preseli Mountains, to Salisbury plain? across the land around 250 miles, or floated on boats around South Wales and South West England, then Northwards across the land to Salisbury Plain? And why at Salisbury Plain - what was special about this area to early Britons? Due to Coronavirus, this year people are not able to visit Stonehenge, but you van witness the sunrise on 21st June (the Summer Solstice sunrise depends on how the days are counted, and there is little difference to the spectacle a day either side) as English Heritage are airing the sunrise live on their Social Media accounts. you can find out more about Stonehenge, and the Solstices at the English Heritage website below - oh, and fingers crossed for a clear sky tomorrow morning! https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/things-to-do/solstice/ Black History in Britain goes back to before the Anglo-Saxons invaded and settled Britain creating the English. Black people lived in Britain as Roman Citizens during the Roman Empire's control of Britain. As the Roman Empire stretched across Europe and into North Africa, Africans could migrate as citizens, or as soldiers in the Roman Army. There has long been pictorial evidence from Roman Times, but as the BBC article featuring Lavinya Stennett shows archaeological evidence and scientific analysis in 2010 of a Roman woman's skeleton found in 1901, shows that she was born in Britain around 350 AD, and likely of North African descent.
Another fascinating example in the article is the case of John Blanke, Henry VIII's, and Henry VII's trumpeter, shown on a roll at a tournament to celebrate the birth of Henry VIII's scroll, on horseback in a troop of royal trumpeters. Incredibly, further evidence has survived in a petition by John Blanke to the king for a pay rise. The article includes the triumphs of the 1960s Bristol bus boycott, as well as the sadness of the Race Riots that followed the First World War when Black soldiers returned from the front to scapegoated (blamed unfairly) for the economic crises - as well as how slavery was a driving force in the UK's industrial development. Find out more on the BBC with Kameron Virk's article at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52939694 On this day, May 25th 240 BCE, Halley's Comet was first recorded in China, in the Records of the Grand Historian, or Shiji.
It may have been commented upon in Greece and China prior to this. A later recording in 87 BCE appears on Babylonian tablets that can be seen at the British Museum. Halley's comet is famously depicted in the Bayeux Tapeestry, having been seen by the Anglo-Saxons in 1066, and they saw it as a bringer of doom. It is called Halley's Comet, after Edmund Halley who in 1705, used Isaac Newton's laws of gravity and motion to calculate that three comet appearances, were actually the same comet returning around every 76 years. He went on to predict it would return in 1758. Unfortunatley, Halley died in 1742. Late in 1758 the comet returned first being seen by a German farmer and amateur astronomer. A French astronomer named it Halley's Comet after Edmund Halley. The return of Halley's Comet proved Isaac Newton's principles, and was the first object kown to orbit the Sun other than the planets. Though, the Babylonian and Jewish authorities in ancient times may have recognised that it returned, was 'periodic', as a passage notes a star returning once every 70 years. The last sighting of Halley's Comet was in 1986, where a European space probe named Giotto closed in on it flying through the comet's tail. It was called Giotto, after the artist who painted a Christian Nativity scene, using Halley's Comet, as the Star of Bethlehem. Next sighting 2061! On this day, May 24th 1930. Amy Johnson gained fame as an aviator for becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.
She flew from Croydon. England to Darwin in Australia, a trip of 11,000 miles, in her plane Jason. She gained numerous honours for her feat in both Britain and Australia. During the Second World War she served in the Air Transport Auxillary (ATA) where she transported RAF planes across the country the airfields where they would be used to engage the enemy and defend Britain and its allies. On this day, May 21st 1799, Mary Anning the pioneering fossil hunter was born.
Lyme Regis is famous for its Fossils, and Mary Anning was the pioneering female fossil hunter - the 'Princess of Paleontology', 1799 - 1847. She discovered the first ichthyosaur (aged 12), first plesiosaur and first British pterosaur. Her range of scientific discoveries did not gain her the credit they deserved, in the male dominated scientific community at the time. She took on the family fossil business, selling samples to the King of Saxony, and for display at the forerunner to the New York Academy of Sciences, the Lyceum of Natural History. She is buried in St. Michael's church, where there is a window dedicated to her. In 2010 the Royal Society placed her in a list of the ten British women who had most influenced science. Find out more: Video from the Smithsonian, the US museum in Washington DC, featuring David Attenborough as he visits the Natural History Museum in London, where you can see some of Mary Anning's finds in London: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/history/prolific-princess-of-paleontology-mary-anning/ Two Videos from the BBC on Mary Anning's life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNOh-85_Dmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEbgTpdwRgI On this day, May 14th 1607, the first permanent English settlement was established at Jamestown, Virginia, the beginnings of the United States of America.
The English settlers departed from the banks of the Thames in London in Deecember, and it took their three ships the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, four months to cross the Atlantic Ocean and make landfall on the coast of North America. Once on the coast they explored the area, and decided to build a settlement on an island in what they called the James River, which was away from the Atlantic Ocean, navigable (where boats could be used) and was easy to defend. The site was uninhabited by the Powhatan Native Americans, as it was seen as a swamp of mosquitoes unsuitable for farming. On unsuitable ground for farming, and with little agricultural experience amongst the settlers, whose main aim was hunting for gold, the settlement struggled to survive. Supplies from the local group of Powhatan Indians, ensured their survival, though relations with the Powhatan went through phases of friendship and warfare. The settlement also saw its settlers replaced by more colonists coming from England, and within four years the local Native Americans had been wiped out through warfare. Pocahontas the daughter of the Native American Chief of the region, befriended the English settlers, is said to have saved John Smith one of the seettlers' leaders from being executed; been taken hostage and converted to Christianity, and married John Rolfe, before travelling with Rolfe to England. As she was to travel back, with Rolfe and their son, Pocahontas died at Gravesend on the Thames, and was buried there in the local churchyard - where a statue of her now stands. John Rolfe began the successful cultivation of tobacco at the settlement, which became its main crop. The settlement was almost abandoned in 1610, but the leaving colonists were ordered to return, when more ships of settlers arrived from across the Atlantic Ocean, In many ways the Jamestown settlement that established the British colony of Virginia, and served for many years as its capital, began numerous features of the United States of America, its Anglo-Saxon (English/British) culture, such as its language, and the political system of rights and democracy. Whilst, it also led to th losses experienced by the Native American nations, as well as the use of slavery to grow plantation crops. On this day, May 9th 1860, Scottish author J.M. Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus.
J.M. Barrie is most famous for creating Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, who could fly and lived in Never Never Land, whilst living in London. Barrie devised the character on trips to Kensington Gardens, where he regaled the children of a family he befriended with Peter Pan's exploits. You can see the statue Barrie commissioned of Peter Pan, in Kensington Gardens near the west bank of the Long Water at the spot where he landed his bird's nest boat in Barrie's book 'The Little White Bird'. The statue hs been a favourite in Kensington Gardens since 1912. In his will Barrie gave the copyright to his Peter Pan books, and character, to Great Ormond Street Hospital, the famous children's hospital in London. A right that in 1988 was set into law by a House of Lords amendment to the UK Copyright Act, that means Great Ormond Street Hospital will always have this copyright. Find out more about this special connection via: https://www.gosh.org/about-us/peter-pan/history Find out more about his birthplace in Scotland at: https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/j-m-barries-birthplace Banksy's latest artwork has been gifted to Suthampton General Hospital, and portrays the latest Superhero - a nurse!
The painting shows a boy playing with his toys, the old superheroes Batman and Spiderman have been discarded, as the boy plays with a nurse doll, as a child would a plane. The nurse is a caped crusader, wearing a female nurse's outfit, emblazoned with a red cross, wearing a face mask and in the superhero flight pose of Superman. The message is unmistakable, the nurses, the NHS, are the new superhero on the block in the era of coronavius, Covid-19. see more on the BBC at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52556544 On April 25th, 1599, Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon - Cromwell is a key figure in the development of the UK's democracy - and many democracies derived from the UK around the globe, including the USA and Commonwealth countries.
Cromwell became a Member of Parliament, as a deeply religious stict Protestant Christian, called a Puritan. He was highly critical of King Charles I, seeking the abolition of the monarchy. In the English Civil War, Cromwell fought for the Parliamentarians, against supporters of the King, the Royalists. He was intrumental in the reorganisation of the Parliamentarian forces into the New Model Army, of a paid military where rank was based on ability rather than one's title. The New Model Army, with its religious zeal of fighting against the King, believed to favour Catholicism, was highly effective, so much so it is seen as the leading army in Europe at the time. Cromwell's tactics and control of his forces at the Battle of Naseby in 1645, led to victory at the Battle of Naseby - a turning point in the Civil War. Cromwell pushed for the trial and executino the King in 1649. Following which, he dismissed the Rump Parliament, that was failing to ut in place a new constitution, with the aid of the military forces at his command. Cromwell became England's ruler, refusing to take the title of King, instead he was entitled 'Lord Protector'. His rule is seen as austere due to his determination to put in place religious laws to make England a Godly Commonwealth in his eyes, banning theatres, pubs and Christmas. Thus, he was increasingly acting in ways that were similar to how King Charles I had acted removing liberties. Cromwell reputation was also tarnished by his military actions in Ireland, especially the atrocities at the Siege of Drogheda. Cromwell, died in 1658, being replaced by his son, Richard, who lacking the support of the army was deposed and Charles 1's son Charles II was restored to the throne as the rightful king. Cromwell's statue stands outside of the Houses of Parliament in London - as a memorial to his role in creating the UK's Constitutional Monarchy whereby Parliament has greater influence than a symbolic monarch. The outcome of the English Civil War, is ceremonially played out at the start of each Parliamentary session, at the Queen's Speech - where MPs throw the House of Commons door shut in the face of the monarch's messenger, Black Rod. Black Rod has to knock three times before the door is opened and they can deliver their message from the monarch to the MPs, to attend the monarch's speech in the House of Lords, The MPs then walk at a leisurely pace to the House of Lord, to listen to the monarch's speech - as they choose to go, rather than being ordered to by the monarch. |
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