Telegraph (UK)

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  8-12-13
  

  The women who 'inspired' polar-explorers Shackleton and Scott

  The wives of Britain's best-known polar explorers inspired them to make their important voyages, a historian has claimed.Kari Herbert claims that Sir Ernest Shackleton only made his first expedition to impress his lover.Miss Herbert, the daughter of the Polar explorer Sir Wally Herbert, said Capt Robert Falcon Scott would "absolutely not" have reached the South Pole without the robust encouragement of his wife, Kathleen.Miss Herbert, who researched the women for her new book Heart of the Hero, said the stories of explorers' wives were "fantastically important" in expeditions to the Antarctic."In the case of Scott, absolutely he would not have gone down to the Antarctic again without Kathleen," she said....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  8-7-13
  

  Remains of 16th century Londoners found in Bedlam burial ground

  Crossrail archaeologists have unearthed the remains of patients from the infamous Bedlam Hospital, the world's first psychiatric asylum.The skeletons, unearthed in the UK's largest archaeological site, belonged to a few of the 20,000 people interred in a burial ground established adjacent to the psychiatric asylum.Crossrail's lead archaeologist Jay Carver said: "we've got a sixteenth century burial ground existing right below our feet in the road here, about two metres from where we're standing are the skeletons of perhaps up to four thousand people who live and died in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."...

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  8-6-13
  

  Dozens of UK WWII vets denied Bomber Command clasp

  Second World War bomber veterans are calling for the Bomber Command clasp to be extended to dozens of surviving aircrew who risked their lives on raids in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Far East.After years of campaigning by veterans, the Government announced in February that the Bomber Command Clasp would be awarded to aircrew in recognition of their bravery and service.But aircrew who undertook perilous bombing raids over Italy, Africa, the Middle East and the Far East have been told they are not eligible for the new award, which only applies to those who flew with Bomber Command over Western Europe.The Bomber Command Association has now backed the veterans and an MP is calling for the Ministry of Defence to reconsider the qualifying rules for the decoration....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  8-7-13
  

  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Towards a Radical New Theory of Anglo-American Slavery, and Vindication of Free Markets

  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is International Business Editor of The Daily Telegraph. He has covered world politics and economics for 30 years, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels.With luck it will help to vindicate the fathers of liberal government and the free market in the 17th and 18th Centuries, falsely accused until now of abetting - or promoting - the great crime of race-based African slavery.For academic orthodoxy holds that John Locke and the great Whig thinkers of the Glorious Revolution (1688) helped to design and foster the economic system of hereditary slavery that shaped Atlantic capitalism for a century and a half.From that it is but a step to dismiss the moral claims of liberalism as so much humbug, to write off all the talk of justice, natural rights, inviolable contracts and government by consent as the self-interested catechism of oppressors. As Samuel Johnson said acidly: "How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  8-4-13
  

  Forbidden love of a star-crossed prince

   It has all the ingredients of a romantic bestseller: a prince and a princess are desperately in love but, forbidden from marrying, they beg the Queen and the Pope for help.It even boasts a tragic ending, as the young prince dies shortly after becoming engaged to another woman, while his fiancée is comforted by his heartbroken family.In fact it is the true story of how Prince Albert, Duke of Clarence and Avondale and grandson of Queen Victoria, wooed Princess Hélène of Orléans, whose father was a pretender to the French throne.The couple’s intimate correspondence has now come to light, showing for the first time the details of an affair which at the time came close to causing a constitutional crisis. Prince Albert considered renouncing his right to accede to the throne to marry Hélène, who was forbidden from joining the Royal family because she was a Roman Catholic....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  8-7-13
  

  Brompton Road Underground tube bunker for sale

  Brompton Road tube station is one of London’s abandoned underground stations which went on to play a critical role in the Second World War as the command bunker for the capital’s anti-aircraft defences.Now the ghost tube station is being sold off after decades in the hands of the Ministry of Defence.Situated in the heart of Kensington, a short walk from Harrods, the building and its tunnels beneath are expected to fetch more than £20 million when they go on the market next month.“It will need quite a bit of work. There’s no power and there’s been no one down here full time for 60 years,” said Julian Chafer, an MoD property surveyor, as he showed the Telegraph through the abandoned tunnels and lift shafts....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-30-13
  

  'Paradogs' lured with meat out of aircraft behind enemy lines in WWII

  Lance Corporal Ken Bailey was asked to train up the “paradogs” so they could be used as the “eyes and ears” of the soldiers on the ground.The dogs, which would be given minimal food and water before the jump, were being prepared to parachute into Normandy for D-Day landing and would freeze if they heard a sound.They were also trained to become familiar with loud noises and smells such as cordite, the explosive powder.Their handlers would carry a piece of meat in their pockets on the aircraft so as they parachuted out the “paradogs” would jump out after them.The documents written by L/Cpl Bailey, who served in the 13th (Lancashire) Parachute Battalion and was from Liverpool, were discovered by Andrew Woolhouse, who spent five years researching his book....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-25-13
  

  High Court 'pardon' bid for Boer war soldier 'Breaker' Morant

  His death in front of a firing squad was the defining moment of one of the best known, and most bitter, episodes of the Boer War: British-Australian soldier Harry “Breaker” Morant was court martialled and sentenced to death in 1902 for shooting prisoners.But now, more than a century on, campaigners are to launch a legal bid at the High Court in London to force the Government to open an inquiry into the case with a view to securing a posthumous pardon for Morant, as well as fellow soldiers, Peter Handcock, shot for the same offence, and George Witton, who was jailed for life.The supporters believe the men were simply following British army orders when they executed their prisoners and that they were used as scapegoats by embarrassed senior officers, including Lord Kitchener, and to accelerate peace talks with the Boers.Jim Unkles, a military lawyer who has taken the case on, said: “I am applying to the High Court for a review of the British government decision not to help an independent inquiry. I am filing papers next month. The appeal will be on the basis that there were major errors at the court martial, that it was an abuse of protest and that these men were denied their rights. Kitchener conspired to get them executed.”...

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-19-13
  

  Alan Turing to be pardoned for gay conviction

  Alan Turing, the World War Two code breaker who later killed himself after receiving a criminal conviction for his homosexuality, looks set to be pardoned.The Government said it would not stand in the way of legislation to offer a full Parliamentary pardon for Turing, who helped Britain to win the Second World War as a skilled code-breaker.Until now, the Government has resisted using the Royal Prerogative to pardon Turing for his conviction for gross indecency in 1952 because he was a homosexual.Ministers had argued that because Turing was convicted of what was at the time a criminal offence, it is not possible to hand him a full posthumous pardon....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-12-13
  

  Two schoolboys discover Saxon human skeleton while playing in river

  Christian Thompson and Robbie Cribley, both 13, originally thought they had found an animal skull, but forensic experts believe the pair happened upon human remains which are 700 years old.The pair were in their dingy on the River Coln near their homes in Fairford, Gloucestershire, on Sunday evening, when they became stuck in an overhanging tree and saw the skull in the water.When they returned to the site with local television crews they unearthed the spine, arm bone and the rest of the body....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-11-13
  

  How world's most difficult puzzle was solved

  It was one of the most captivating mysteries of the modern age, requiring three detectives and 52 years to solve. Along the way, there was magnificent obsession, bitter disappointment, world-shaking triumph and swift, unexplained death.At the centre of the mystery lay a set of clay tablets from the ancient Aegean, inscribed more than 3,000 years ago and discovered at the dawn of the 20th century amid the ruins of a lavish Bronze Age palace.Written by royal scribes, the tablets teemed with writing like none ever seen: tiny pictograms in the shapes of swords, horses’ heads, pots and pans, plus a set of far more cryptic characters whose meaning is still debated today....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-11-13
  

  5,000-year-old 'Chinese characters' discovered

  The inscriptions were found on pieces of pottery and rock dug up from the Zhuangqiao excavation site in the eastern province of Zhejiang and could date back to one of China's oldest civilisations, the Liangzhu.There is still no consensus among Chinese academics as to whether the markings represent mere symbols or in fact a primitive written language from which today's written characters originate.The inscriptions could represent "the earliest record of Chinese characters in history, pushing the origins of the written language back 1,000 years," according to China's official news agency Xinhua....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-1-13
  

  Skull challenges Captain Cook claim

  A skull found on the banks of a river in rural Australia is believed to date from the 1600s and has challenged the view that Captain Cook was the first white person to set foot on the country’s east coast.Carbon dating showed the skull belonged to a Caucasian male and had an 80 per cent chance of dating back to the 1600s, long before Captain Cook first reached Australia in 1770.The tests were ordered by local police after the intact skull was found near Taree, a town about 200 miles north of Sydney. No other skeletal remains were found....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-11-13
  

  Memorial for Britons who fought in American Civil War

  The 300,000 Britons who fought in the American Civil War are to be remembered on both sides of the Atlantic.Two war memorials - one in Liverpool and the other in the US state of Virginia, where much of the fighting took place - are being proposed by a British group of historians.Although Britain was officially neutral in the conflict, thousands of men born in Britain but living in America at the time fought for both President Lincoln's anti-slavery Federals and the pro-slavery southern Confederates.Basil Larkins of the American Civil War British Memorial Association is trying to raise £10,000 for the monuments....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-9-13
  

  Cristina Odone: How About Celebrating UK History for a Change?

  Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. She has recently launched the website freefaith.com.I'm glad to see that the new National Curriculum will be big on British history. The present state of affairs is dire, and has long needed an overhaul. Eric Pickles has stressed the importance of English for immigrants to feel proper citizens – but history is just as necessary, for citizens and immigrants alike. When the natives have been taught to hate their ancestors, who's going to teach the newcomers how lucky they are to be in their new homeland?

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  7-7-13
  

  War heroes laid to rest 70 years after their plane went down

  The crew of a British Second World War bomber that was shot down over Italy are to be laid to rest almost 70 years after they went missing in action.Six months after Warrant Officer John Hunt failed to return from a bombing raid over northern Italy in the last days of the Second World War, his mother sent a letter to the military authorities pleading for information about her missing son.Jeanette Madge wrote that the months since she had received the telegram notifying her he had not returned from the mission had been “just hell, waiting for something to come through” adding “please let me know if he is alright or if he is gone”....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  6-11-13
  

  Crown Prince Alexander II: the man who would be king of Serbia

  Four wooden coffins lie in a row, each draped in a subtly different red and blue standard. Behind them, an ornate iconostasis rises 20 feet to the cupola of the royal chapel. In front of them, crucifixes in Cyrillic script record the names of the coffins’ inhabitants. “This is my father, my mother, my grandmother, and my uncle,” says the crown prince, gesturing at each in turn.Republics do not often throw state funerals for royals, still less for four at once. Nor do they have princes, princesses and palaces. But Crown Prince Alexander II, heir to the throne of what for a short time before World War II was the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and is now a mosaic of republics in sometimes unhappy coexistence, is untroubled by such apparent contradictions. After a decade of lobbying, he succeeded last month in burying four members of the Karadjordevic dynasty in what was once their kingdom.On an overcast May morning in Oplenac, an hour’s drive west of Belgrade, thousands of Serbs queued for hours to get a glimpse of the prince as he arrived for the service. He stood to kiss a crucifix held aloft by Patriarch Irinej, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, before watching men in national costume bear the coffins to the royal mausoleum, where one day he, too, will be buried....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  6-11-13
  

  More UK history in new GCSEs

  GCSEs will feature more British history, a study of classic literature and an increased focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar as part of a major drive to raise standards in schools, it was announced today.Qualifications sat by 16-year-olds in England will be dramatically overhauled to make exams comparable with the toughest tests sat elsewhere in the world, ministers claimed.A series of course documents published by the Department for Education showed that GCSEs – taught for the first time from 2015 – would place a renewed focus on traditional subject knowledge.The new history course will feature a minimum of 40 per cent British history – up from 25 per cent at the moment – and require pupils to show a basic understanding of chronology....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  6-11-13
  

  Eva Braun's letters discovered

  The last words of Eva Braun, Hitler’s long time mistress and wife of a few hours, charting her fear of their certain death, have been discovered....The letters are thought to have been written by Braun to her friend Herta Schneider.Third Reich expert Anna Maria Sigmund insists the letters are genuine and were shown to her by descendants of Schneider.She has published the series of letters in a book called The Women of the Nazis, and told the Daily Mail: “I have no doubt the letters are genuine and Eva Braun has typed them, correcting her faults by hand....

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  6-7-13
  

  Top secret D-Day orders emerge

  Top secret orders issued to naval captains involved in the D-Day landings have emerged after spending decades hidden in a chest in a loft, where they were discovered following a house fire.The inch-thick document – which should have been destroyed at the end of the Normandy invasion – gives a detailed account of the navy’s role in the landings.The orders were issued to Royal Navy officers who were involved in Operation Neptune – the code-name for the initial phase of the D-Day mission....