Cancelling Christmas and the Plum Pudding Revolution
In 1647, the new puritan government tried to cancel Christmas. In 1647, the new puritan government tried to cancel Christmas. People in Canterbury protested in a peculiarly English way with a destructive game of football …
What were the inalienable heirlooms of the Habsburgs?
Amongst a glittering treasury of splendours, the Habsburgs revered two objects above all others. One was a bowl reputed to be the Holy Grail and the other was a unicorn’s horn. Where did these otherworldly objects come from? And where are…
The most spectacular incident of biological warfare?
The bubonic plague that swept Asia and Europe in the Middle Ages was one of history’s most destructive and transformative disasters. Was the Black Death caused by an intentional and devastating act of biological warfare …
Give peace a chance? Congress’s lone World War pacifist
Only one Member of Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin, voted against the resolution that brought the United States into the Second World War. Astonishingly, she had also voted against American participation in the First World War. A clear, steady and solitary voice…
The Englishman who started the Spanish Civil War
. This week, on the Vaguely Interesting Podcast, we go back to the 1930s and visit the Croydon Airport to meet the Englishman who started the Spanish Civil War. Just after seven o’clock in the morning on 11 July 1936, Captain…
Commuting hell on the underground steam railway
What happened when steam engines were placed in the tunnels of the world’s first underground railway? The Metropolitan Railway opened in 1863 and, for the first 45 years, it ran steam trains. There are few sounds as emotive as the chug,…
How did Britain thank her greatest military commanders?
The story of how Britain rewarded four of its most illustrious battlefield commanders. This is the story of how Britain thanked four of the biggest names in her military history – Marlborough, Wellington, Haig and Montgomery.
Whipping the cat and lining your eyes with ham – idioms lost in translation
How close are we to the universal translators that pepper science fiction? Will Google Translate be the technological equivalent of Douglas Adams’s babel fish? For simple sentences, the service works well. Google Translate can even master complicated documents or, at least,…
Warwolf – King Edward’s secret weapon to hammer the Scots
Stirling Castle is a striking, man-made addition to an already formidable natural fortress. Sheer cliffs thrust up from the rolling Scottish Lowlands. The thick castle walls extend these solid quartz-dolerite foundations towards the sky. It is imposing and seems impregnable. It…
Framing the question – history’s lessons for winning and losing referenda
On Sunday, Greeks will go to the polls to vote in a crucial referendum. The politics are fraught, the media is frenzied and accusations and recriminations are already flying. The ballot paper has attracted plenty of attention, both inside and outside…
The coronation that never was
On 12 May 1937, Westminster Abbey rang with shouts acclaiming the new King-Emperor. In 1936, Britain had prepared for the coronation. Much of this effort was wasted when Edward VIII abdicated on 10 December 1936. Everyone had been getting ready for the coronation…
![Adolf Hitler Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13774 / Unknown Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA [CC-BY-SA-3.0-de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.almosthistorypodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-13774_Adolf_Hitler-e1421784412491.jpg)
Fuck off, mein Führer!
By 1935, the Nazi Party had consolidated its grip on the Third Reich. The Enabling Act and November 1933’s election made Hitler the supreme power in Germany. The Night of the Long Knives saw the party bear its murderous teeth to…