History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘History’
In a Christmas broadcast in 1940, actor Leslie Howard explained why British sovereignty was worth fighting for.
In a radio broadcast just before Christmas in 1940, British actor Leslie Howard spoke movingly of the remarkable and indeed unique character of his country, built on individual liberty and democratic government, and contrasted it with the ‘new European order’.
Florence used her logical mind and society connections to save thousands of lives in the Crimean War.
By the time she was twenty-one, well-to-do Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was sure that God wished her to exchange European society life for nursing. Her mother begged her to think again: her intellectual gifts and social position promised so much more. And in a way she was right.
A British victory at tragic cost, in which both sides had to learn a new way of fighting.
In February 1916, Germany launched an offensive at Verdun in Lorraine, near the German border with France. To relieve the French forces, the British tried to draw the Germans north to the River Somme in Picardy.
Hospitality and sympathy, but no help - the Byzantine Emperor learns a bitter lesson about western diplomacy.
Byzantium became the capital of the Roman Empire in 330, and was renamed Constantinople after the Emperor, Constantine. Its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 was one of the great catastrophes of civilisation, yet England and the other powers of Europe stood and watched.
‘D-Day’ on 6th June, 1944, kicked off the Allied invasion of Europe and raised hopes of an end to the Second World War.
The Normandy Landings began with ‘D-Day’ set for 5th June, 1944, though unfavourable weather postponed it to the following day. The landings heralded the start of the Allied invasion of Europe and the end of the Second World War, though it was nearly a year before victory could be declared.