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Q&A
Did NASA really pick the brains of the Tower of London armoury when designing the first space suits? I’ve read that King Henry VIII’s armour was of particular interest
The earliest space suits were basically adaptations of the high-altitude pressure suits worn by aircraft pilots. But as the American space programme progressed, more sophisticated gear was needed, particularly for walking on the moon.
The technical challenge was making a fully enclosed suit that would permit the astronaut maximum mobility; medieval armour was one historical precedent. The Tower...
What was the Cocos Islands Mutiny?
During the Second World War, only three servicemen from British and Commonwealth forces were executed for mutiny. All three were participants in the Cocos Islands Mutiny, which took place in May 1942...
What was the significance of the battle of Wigan Lane?
In August 1651, King Charles II arrived in Worcester with a mostly Scottish army and summoned all royalists to join him against the new republican government of Oliver Cromwell. The Earl of...
On reading your recent article on suffragettes (Where History Happened, June), I was wondering if there were any similar movements throughout Europe at the same time?
The suffragettes were by far the most prominent suffrage campaigners in Europe. Moderate suffrage campaigners elsewhere were gaining momentum in the decade before the First World War, spurred on by...
Considering their proximity to France, why didn’t Napoleon Bonaparte ever invade the Channel Islands?
Given that Britain and France were at war almost permanently between 1792 and 1814, it does seem strange that Napoleon made no effort to occupy what were almost exclusively French-speaking islands...
What happened to Katherine Parr’s daughter, Mary Seymour, after her mother’s death?
Following Katherine’s death a matter of days after Mary’s birth, the newborn’s father, Thomas Seymour, placed Mary in the household of his brother, the Duke of Somerset. But the...
"The French invented the guillotine"
The decapitation machine now known as the guillotine was not a French invention and wasn’t invented by Joseph Guillotin. The origins of this macabre device are medieval, although the date of...
Did Japan ever sign the Geneva Convention after the Second World War?
Drawn up by international committee in 1929, the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was ratified by 47 governments. Japan signed but, like the USSR, failed to ratify the...
“There is a Nobel Prize for economics”
Historically Alfred Nobel never instituted a prize in economics. In 1888 a French newspaper prematurely published Nobel’s obituary, claiming that the inventor of dynamite “became rich by...
What is the Knollys Red Rose Rent?
In the 14th century Sir Robert Knollys built a footbridge to connect two properties he owned on either side of Seething Lane in the City of London. Building the bridge breached city regulations and...
Who was Nellie Bly?
In her heyday, Nellie Bly was possibly the most famous woman in America, but she has been largely forgotten. Born in Pennsylvania in 1864, Elizabeth Jane Cochrane took the pen-name of Nellie Bly from...
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