It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
Perhaps the most calamitous chapter in all Scottish history was opened when Charles Edward Stuart, more commonly referred to as 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', decided to invade Scotland in 1745 in hopes of regaining the British crown. Charles Stuart was either the 'Young Pretender' or the legitimate heir to the British throne, depending on whether one's sympathies lay with …
Continue reading ‘Butcher Cumberland’ and the smashing of the Highland clans
The use of airborne leaflet propaganda during times of conflict was first seen in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, when the defenders of Paris dropped leaflets over the besieging German troops from a hot air balloon, proclaiming their defiance. However, hot air balloons and the like were slow and unwieldy, and it wasn't until the First …
Today, Münster is a small and unassuming city in the northwest of Germany, hardly the first place one would think of when asked to identify historical hotbeds of sedition and rebellion. Yet for several surreal months in 1535-6, Münster was the scene of a radical religious and political experiment, an attempt by a small group …
Continue reading The Münster rebellion: the creation of a 16th-century theocracy