The Race For The First Flight Over The Channel

The first flight over the Channel was not a sedentary affair. It was a race. And there were no rules. Read a book that gives the wider view rather than the known story behind Louis Bleriot s first flight over the Channel. Barbara Walsh compiled the details on the life and career of Hubert Latham and many facts around the days leading up to the historic flight in 1909.

The Star Puzzle of Bethlehem

For years, astronomers have tried to puzzle out what made three astrologers travel from Persia to Israel at a certain date 2,000 years ago. Missing data, unclear sources, later additions and elisions, and religious bias make the job just more interesting. But are astronomers the right people to unravel an astrological puzzle?

Town of Embroidery: St Gallen

The Swiss city of St Gallen is linked with high quality embroideries used by leading fashion designers around the world. It is also a beautiful town with a long history and a picturesque historic city center. At its very center stands the magnificent monastery dedicated to St Gall with its baroque cathedral and UNESCO World Heritage library.

Bruce Castle or Lordship House

Bruce Castle is a misnomer, a historical cheat. It is a manor house in Tottenham in London and was just plain Lordship House for most of its existence. Trying to live up to a grand name, it does have some history and even a resident ghost, as well as quite a few historical questions that need to be worked out.

Lost and Found, Britannic's Organ

The ocean liner Britannic was the latest Olympic class passenger ship built by the White Star Line and the sister ship of the Titanic. Being unfinished at the start of the Great War, the ship was drafted into service as a hospital ship and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea in 1916. An Organ was obviously not needed on a hospital ship and it disappeared from history in 1914 to surface in Switzerland in 2006.