It had to happen somewhere but a place near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina was the setting for mankind’s first powered aircraft flight.
The brothers Wright, namely Orville and Wilbur, were originally from Dayton, Ohio, naming their flying machine ‘Wright Flyer’. It was effectively the first powered flight of an aircraft, ushering in the aeronautic age which has completely transformed our culture.
The true genius of the Wright brothers was their practical invention of proper controls for a fixed wing aircraft, allowing it to take off, maneuver in the air and land safely for the first time, all of which came to full fruition with their ‘Wright Flyer III’ a couple of years later.
On this day 80 years ago, the film ‘Gone With The Wind’ premiered in Atlanta Georgia.
The film, one of the most famous and iconic releases ever, was based on a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell, a fraught, romantic and ultimately tragic story of the American Civil War and its aftermath in the South.
The film also starred two of Hollywood’s greats, the beautiful British Actress, Vivien Leigh and the impossibly handsome Clark Gable.
Sir Francis Drake combined several roles, from pirate to sea captain, privateer to explorer. He perhaps typifies the ‘entrepreneurial’ spirit of the Elizabethan Age at the birth of the first English and subsequently British Empire.
One of his most daring exploits was a successful circumnavigation of the earth from 1577 to 1580. He set off with just five ships, including the Pelican which he was on board. He did soon include another ship, however, under the captaincy of a Portuguese, Nuno da Silva, who knew well some of the sea routes around the Americas.
To Elizabeth and the English, Drake was a hero, a continual threat to the Spanish fleets and their gold. To the Spanish, however, he was often referred to as ‘El Draco’, or the Dragon, also probably because of his warlike and privateering exploits in the Spanish Main.
Today marks the anniversary of Guglielmo Marconi’s epoch making transmission of the very first transatlantic radio signal.
An event which was to effectively usher in the new telecommunications world of the 20th century, was sent from Britain’s extreme south west peninsula, namely Poldhu in Cornwall, to St. John’s on the island of Newfoundland on North America’s eastern coast, using a wireless transmitting station in Ireland.
He had been king for less than a year and hadn’t had a coronation.
Edward VIII officially gave up his kingship, his rule over an empire which spanned the earth, on which the sun never set. All because, we are famously told, for his love of an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, a situation which could not be tolerated by the highly conservative establishment of the time. But of course it was a bit more complicated than that.
Like quite a few Britons at the time, Edward was an admirer of certain European dictators. After the abdication he became more than a mere acquaintance of one of them, something which didn’t go down too well in certain parts of the British establishment, as Europe and the world was led inexorably towards war.
As Prince of Wales he had been quite popular with his people back home and throughout the Empire and Commonwealth. He was able to relate to them despite the most privileged upbringing one could get. He was, however, quite shy and perhaps felt somewhat unworthy of the role fate had given him, something which led to several bouts of depression.
For these reasons and perhaps others too, he probably never felt he was not cut out for being a monarch of a vast and populous empire.
Falling in love with Mrs Simpson was only one reason among several which made him feel incapable of carrying on as king, a heavy responsibility which in the end he was forced to leave behind.
Ciscography 