Monthly Archives: November 2015
HISTORIC VISITOR: HALLEY’S COMET
A periodic comet is one that shows up at regular intervals. One of the most famous is Halley’s Comet, depicted above in Scene 32 of the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates The Battle of Hastings (1066). This comet was named for the eighteenth-century astronomer, Edmund Halley. It had been popping up for millennia, but it was […]
HISTORIC REVERSAL: CELSIUS FREEZING AND BOILING POINTS
To most, Celsius is just a temperature scale (and a thorn in the side of those of us who still think in Fahrenheit), but the name comes from Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (born November 27th, 1701), who devised a scale that had 0° as the boiling point of water and 100° as the freezing point. […]
HISTORY SHARE: CASTLE COMFORT
With winter coming on, anyone who’s been to the ruins of a medieval castle is likely to think that castles must have been cold, draughty places. But were they? http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.ca/2015/03/castles-cold-or-cosy.html
HISTORIC DECISION: FOOTBALL FIELD vs. MOUNTAIN MEADOW
On November 17th, 1968, the American television network NBC abandoned its coverage of an NFL game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders and went to its scheduled, and much-advertised family special, Heidi. This shouldn’t have been a big deal. There was barely a minute of game time left and with the Jets […]
HOLOCAUST HEROES: MUSLIMS WHO SAVED JEWS
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent outrageous statement regarding Arabs being responsible for the Nazi Holocaust, kids should perhaps learn of Muslims who saved Jews during WW II. https://time.com/4651298/holocaust-memorial-day-muslims-jews/
FAMILY HISTORY: WORLD WARS I AND II CASUALTIES
That’s me, in 1964, by the grave of an uncle I never met. My father, and five more uncles (two paternal, three maternal) returned from WW II, but Andrew Stewart Duke was killed in a military accident and lies in Brookwood Military Cemetery in England. Another uncle, Daniel Harrison, died when his bomber went down […]
HOLOCAUST HERO: CHIUNE SUGIHARA
Though many people have heard of Schindler’s List, Sugihara’s Visas are not so well known. Chiune Sugihara became the Japanese Consul General to Lithuania in 1940, and between July 31st to Aug. 28th of that year, issued visas to Jews in defiance of his government’s orders. Thanks to him, thousands of people were able to […]
Time Travelling With Kids 