1. January 20 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated to a fourth term as President of the United States, the only President ever to exceed two terms. 2. January 27th the Soviet Red Army liberates the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Photograph of prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau during liberation. 3. 14th April Bearers put Continue Reading
Children in the Workhouse
When we think of children and the workhouse, Oliver Twist is the ubiquitous image that comes to the minds of many people. Whilst the fictional Oliver’s experience as an orphan in the workhouse was certainly the experience of some, it is sometimes forgotten that whole families often lived in the workhouse, albeit not together; mothers, Continue Reading
‘Empire Made Me’; Book Review
‘I too am a creature of the empire world.’ The opening sentence of the last chapter initially sounds like a reluctant admission by the author, yet is there anyone who could deny such a label? Certainly not this reviewer, born in the ex-colony of Cyprus to a British mother and ‘native’ father, both grandfathers – Continue Reading
History of the Oscars
The first Academy Awards (later named the Oscars, after the famous statue presented to winners) took place on Thursday 16 May 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the brainchild of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, formed in 1927. For the first decade, the winner’s names were given to local newspapers for publication Continue Reading
The Witches’ Sabbath
Witchcraft was something which expanded greatly during the medieval period, particularly from the onset of the fifteenth century. It had been developed from a long tradition of ecclesiastical and secular persecution of the practice of illicit magic, an act deemed wildly heretical. However, by the 1400s a much more extreme and sinister conception of witchcraft Continue Reading