“Scottish pride was also hurt by Churchill’s decision to call the new monarch Elizabeth II, though she was the first of that title in Scotland. A few postboxes with the QEII symbol were blown up.” (p.202)
“In 1881, the franchise [in the Isle of Man] was extended to property-owning widows and spinsters – making it the first place in the world where women could vote in a national election.” (p.149)
“even today the combined populations of the Irish republic and Northern Ireland, estimated at 7.2 million in 2024, have not yet reached the pre-famine total.” (p.103)
“There were so many Welsh speakers in Minnesota by 1857 that the state constitution was translated into Welsh.” (p.94)
“Manchester’s population grew from 10,000 in 1700 to 303,000 in 1851.” (p.78)
“In one Scottish coal mine, a government commission found a six-year-old girl, Margaret Leveston, who carried half a hundredweight of coal (56 pounds or 25 kilos) on her back from the main shaft to the pithead up to 14 times every working day.” (p.72)
“At the battle of the Boyne in July 1690, James’s outnumbered force of French regulars, German and Walloon mercenaries and Catholic Irish was defeated by William’s ... professional army of Dutchmen, Danes, Huguenots and English.” (p.59)
“the Black Death … is thought to have reduced England’s population by almost half within 18 months.” (p.45)
“Wallace was betrayed to the English, who executed him in grisly fashion in London. His head was displayed on London Bridge, his corpse cut in four and the quarters displayed in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.” (p.43)
“Wales was one of the few countries [in the late 18th century] with a literate majority. Russia’s Catherine the Great commissioned a report on the schools.” (p. 33).
“The British Empire crumbled, yet a language originally spoken by a few thousand Anglo-Saxons is now used by about 1.5 billion people worldwide.” (p.24)
“It has been estimated that between 100,000 and 250,000 Britons perished [during the Roman conquest of Britain] out of a British population of about two million.” (p.6)
“the oldest human footprints outside Africa … were exposed briefly in 2013 on the beach at Happisburgh in Norfolk… scientists were able to date the footprints – along with stone tools found in the area – to between 850,000 and 950,000 years ago.” (p.1)
Just finished reading this fascinating history of "The Isles" from the earliest hominids to the 2024 U.K. general election. Particularly useful for anyone who knows a bit about the history of England but is hazy about the other 3 countries:
Is it more or less plausible than this prediction from 1972?
Morning in County Durham:
Rare sighting of a column chart taking a dip at Hove Beach.
#dataviz
Some observations on contemporary antisemitism from @daverich1.bsky.social which ought to be pretty obvious but apparently aren’t to many people:
open.substack.com/pub/everyday...
Good piece by @davidsonofaaron.bsky.social on “a bombastic piece of anachronistic vulgarity, devoid of taste” and “a global ethnonationalist brand, bought into by Cambridge theologians, Hungarian autocrats, French nationalists and popular historians”:
open.substack.com/pub/davidaar...
His political judgment is as good as his singing:
youtu.be/JA1gBGtOlZU?...
Our son’s neck of the woods.
County Durham:
the old triumph
Of nature over the brief violence
Of man.
(R.S. Thomas, To the farmer)
Good piece by @nickcohen.bsky.social on how the rule of law is not something that is valued by a good many on both right and left:
open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...
“Feud with the Pope” is BACK as a likely Wikipedia section heading after a 400-year gap.
I’m a liberal, but I don’t think all cultures are equal. A liberal democratic culture is preferable to the Third Reich, the Soviet Union and MAGA.
The Industrial Revolution happened in the West, so the West had a lot more opportunity to produce major good and bad things than other parts of the world, and there are plenty of examples of both.
Morning in County Durham (Shincliffe Woods):
Interesting piece on elderly folk (many younger than me) being radicalised online and pretty much losing their minds:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
Some people deserve to be on the receiving end of the activities of a brutal aggressive dictator since they apparently have no objection to such activities unless they personally experience them:
Floral pattern embroidery against a black background with red pink and white flowers
Traditional Polish folk embroidery #WomensArt