Another Xmas done and on our way to a new year!
I’d just like to say a huge thank you to all my customers for your support – it is always very much appreciated.
Life doesn’t always ‘go our way’ and if anyone is reading this who could do with a lift and a walk, please check out TAKE A HIKE on my blog on my walks website www.sues-walks-isle-of-wight.co.uk in which I will be talking about walks I’d like to take in the new year – during January.
I have just added The Salem Witch Trials Guided Reading (5 mini plays, 6 speakers each – plus 5 quizzes, one for each play). I found the content, on re-reading, truly shocking – how total innocents fell foul of total madness – a whole community decimated by the ravings of a handful of ‘bored youngsters’.
I have also written lectures on:
The Salem Witch Trials
&
Gunpowder, Fire and Plague
The above are part of a collection of talks/slide presentations (lectures) I have written (and delivered) with notes accompanying power point slides – numbering anything from 20 to 200 depending on the subject matter!
These have been sitting in three large files for the last three years (thank you Covid!) so I thought it was about time they saw the light of day. I will therefore be adding these to my website so that teachers and fellow speakers (I go into care homes) can make use of what I think are useful and interesting resources.
The death of our late Queen Elizabeth came as a great shock to us all.
She had been such a constant in our lives that suddenly there seemed a great void – a massive sense of loss.
The sequence of events during the last 24 hours has been breathtakingly swift. We have seen our new King greeting the crowds outside Buckingham Palace and then delivering a ‘tribute’ to his mother whilst making his own pledge of allegiance to the British public. This ‘seamless transition’, whilst perhaps catching us a little off guard in its speed, has however served to help fill the aforementioned void along with giving much-needed reassurance. Charles has publicly affirmed his determination to dedicate himself totally to his new role and there can be no questioning his commitment to duty – following in the extraordinary footsteps of his beloved mother.
I have written a script A Tribute to Queen Elizabeth II – A celebration of her Life which I hope will serve as some form of acknowledgement of just how much the late queen meant to us.
I have just written and added to this website three scripts based on Isle of Wight history – Dinosaur Island, Beautiful Brading and Escape from Carisbrooke Castle plus a script on the Island’s wonderful resident red squirrels.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention my other website www.sues-walks-isle-of-wight.co.uk which has a collection of guided walks that I can provide on the Island – where I am currently resident; and which include, as per the scripts mentioned above, the beautiful coasts of Yaverland and Compton Bay where the majority of dinosaur remains are found; the historic town of Brading, and a beautiful walk around Carisbrooke Castle, going up onto the Tennyson Trail.
For anyone who has read this blog recently apologies for the lack of updating. I have been a bit preoccupied with ‘walking the Island’ to where I moved just over a year ago. I think what they say about ‘time standing still on the Island’ is weirdly true – and I’m afraid it has adversely affected my work output over the last year. This will change shortly due to changed circumstances – namely moving back to the mainland when I will resume my former prodigious work output!
Sept 16
Just been listening to a fascinating In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. Living as I do now on ‘prime dinosaur terrain’ on the Isle of Wight my ears always prick up when these awesome beasts from millions of years ago are mentioned. On the programme, a number of experts were discussing crocodiles and their past – as in 250 million years ago.
So as briefly and concisely and simply as I can, this is a brief summary – may be helpful to any teachers doing dinosaurs and using my scripts. The crocodiles lorded it over the dinosaurs up to the end of the Triassic period – they were the top guys/top of the food chain. Then there was the first of the two major mass extinctions 201 million years ago and dinosaurs came out of this into the Jurassic Period much better than the crocodiles – dinosaurs now top dogs, one group much bigger and another, the raptors, smaller with wings and able to fly which became birds. Crocodiles managed to survive by adapting to more aquatic existence and now looked like whales. This adaptation saved the crocodiles and lack of proved the downfall of dinosaurs, none of whom made this adaptation and so became fully extinct at next mass extinction 66 million years ago (asteroid around 6 miles in radius hitting Earth – effects of which didn’t affect lakes and rivers – a global winter followed, with no photosynthesis able to take place due to extremely limited sunshine, and thus detritus as opposed to plant based ecosystems only ones to survive – i.e. where crocs were.
Big question today is, how come there are only 25 species of crocodiles still in existence when there were over 500 in the past (millions of years ago)? Why is contemporary croc not as adaptable as his predecessor? And why are birds doing so much better? An interesting discussion.
Just a brief reference to what you will find in ‘Blog below’. One of the Lockdown activities I did last year was to chart Days in the Past, starting April 15th and going up to June 22nd . For some reason, these dates appeared backwards (don’t ask!) and, rather than delete a lot of ‘hard work’ I thought I’d leave them in, along with some other Blog entries going back to January of last year. So please feel free to dip into these dates, for this coming term – you could do a ‘What happened on this day’ kind of exercise in school, perhaps.
Days in the Past
June 22nd
1949: Birth of of Meryl Streep
1989: in China, 7 students involved in the Tiananmen Square protest are shot after televised show trials.
June 21st
1982: Birth of Prince William
June 20th
1837: 18 year old Victoria accedes to the English throne on the death of her uncle William IV
1909: Birth of movies swashbuckling hero Errol Flynn
June 19th
1829: Founding of London Metropolitan Police Force
1953: No clemency for Rosenbergs
June 18th
1928: First woman to fly Atlantic – 30 yr old Amelia Earhart
June 17th
1775 Battle of Bunker Hill
1944 Iceland becomes independent republic
1991 World in AIDS fight – 8,000 scientists and researchers gathered in Florence for an international conference on the AIDS pandemic.
June 16th
1961 Ballet star Nureyev leaps to freedom
June 15th
1752 Franklin’s kite stunt – to prove electricity and lightning same thing.
1919 Capt John Alcock and Lt Arthur Whitten Brown completed world’s first non-stop flight across the Atlantic.
1934 Hitler and Mussolini meet for the first time
June 14th
1917 German planes bomb London for the first time
1928 Birth of Che Guevara – legendary Argentinian-born revolutionary
1964 Nelson Mandela sentenced to life imprisonment
June 13th
1381 Peasants Revolt – Workers march against poll tax – – crowd of angry peasants led by Wat Tyler
1989 Mikhail Gorbachev and Chancellor Kohl agree that East and West Germany should be reunited.
June 12th
1929 Birth of Anne Frank
1991 Russians go to vote in first democratic election
June 11th
1946 Italy becomes a republic
1979 Death of John Wayne
1988 Celebration of Nelson Mandela’s birthday – 80,000 at London’s Wembley Stadium celebrating biggest 70th birthday party ever.
June 10th
1692 Witch Hunt Fever Sweeps Salem
1967 Israel doubles in size (200% expansion in territory)
1921 Birth of Prince Phillip Duke of Edinburgh
1922 Birth of Judy Garland
June 9th
1781 Birth of George Stephenson English engineer who developed greatly improved steam locomotive.
1870 Death of Charles Dickens
June 8th
632 Death of Mohammed, prophet and founder of Islam.
1968 Martin Luther King’s killer arrested in London – James Earl Ray
June 7th
1848 birth of Paul Gauguin
1905 Norway declares its independence from Sweden
1960 Birth of Prince American singer and musician
1971 India seals its border with newly independent Bangladesh to keep out cholera-stricken refugees
June 6th
1949 1984 George Orwell’s novel published
1961 Death of Carl Gustav Jung- founder of analytical psychology. “Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you”.
1984 Amritsar Massacre – At Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s orders, Indian troops storm Golden Temple in Holy City of Amritsar to arrest Sikh militants taking refuge there – 712 Sikhs and 90 soldiers killed.
June 5th
1783 Hot air balloon, made of linen and paper, launched over Annonay, France – made by brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacque-Etienne Montgolfiier – rising 6000ft in air, for 10 minutes
1963 John Profumo – British Secretary of State for War – forced to quit after affair with Christine Keeler – allegedly also involved with Russian diplomat Captain Ivanov, a former naval attache at the Soviet Embassy 1968 Bobby Kennedy shot
June 4th
1798 Death of Casanova – writer, traveller, adventurer, soldier, spy, diplomat … and dedicated ladies’ man
1805 First ceremony of Trooping of the Colour at Horse Guards Parade, London
June 3rd
1875 Death of French composer Georges Bizet best known for opera Carmen
1899 Death of Johann Strauss – composer of the Blue Danube
1924 Death of German novelist and short story writer Franz Kafka
1937 Former King Edward VIII of Great Britain and Ireland married his American bride, Wallis Warfield Simpson having chosen bride over crown.
June 2nd
1946 Italy becomes a republic
1953 Queen Elizabeth II crowned
1964 PLO formed in Jerusalem 1985 English football clubs banned indefinitely from playing in Europe on account of hooliganism by British fans abroad.
June 1st
1926 Birth of Marilyn Monroe
1942 T.V. licenses first issued in Britain
1979 Zimbabwe becomes Rhodesia
2002 Queen celebrates her Golden Jubilee
2004 Nelson Mandela announces retirement from public life
May 31st
1930 Birth of Clint Eastwood
1961 South Africa becomes republic independent of the British Commonwealth
May 30th
1431 Joan of Arc burnt at the stake
1819 Birth of Queen Victoria
1941 Birth of Bob Dylan
1974 Death of Duke Ellington
May 29th
1660 Coronation of Charles II – after England’s only period of republicanism.
1903 Birth of Bob Hope
1917 Birth of John F. Kennedy
1953 Everest crowned by Hillary and Tenzing
May 28th
1908 Birth of Ian Fleming – creator of 007
1968 Birth of Kylie Minogue
1985 thousands drown as cyclone hits Bangladesh.
May 27th
1900 Belgium first country to elect gov by proportional representation
1977 God Save the queen released by The Sex Pistols
2003 Over 2000 dead following earthquake in Algeria
May 26th
1865 American Civil War over – half a million dead
1703 Death of Samuel Pepys
1907 Birth of John Wayne
1940 Dunkirk
May 25th
1768 Captain Cook sets off from England on voyage to explore the Antipodes in ship the Endeavour.
1935 Jesse Owen, 21 yr old black student athlete from Albama set 5 new world records and equalled a sixth – in one afternoon in a single hour! He equalled the 100 yards record, then set new records for the long jump 220 yards and 220 yard hurdles, breaking the 200 m records on the way!
1990 Brit pm Margaret Thatcher warned of dangers of global warming and pledged Britain to 30 % reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
May 24th
1543 Death of Copernicus who turned heavens upside down. – or at least Church’s doctrine on man’s place in the universe. i.e. our world is not the centre about which all else in the heavens urns, as Aritotle and Ptolemy claimed. His book, On the revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres claimed that the Earth and other planets revolve round the sun; the universe far greater than previously understood to be and man’s place in it is far from central. Very controversial at the time.
1686 Birth of Gabriel Fahrenheit German physicist who invented the mercury thermometer.
1819 Birth of Queen Victoria
1941 Birth of Bob Dylan
1974 Death of Duke Ellington
May 23rd
1701 Birth of Carl Linnaeus Swedish botanist who established the principles for classifying and naming plants and animals.
1701 Captain William Kidd was hanged for piracy and murder in London.
1948 The Empire Windrush sets sail from Jamaica with the first boatload of West Indian immigrants invited to Britain to help with post-war reconstruction.
May 22nd
1813 Birth of Richard Wagner
1927 Richard Nixon first US president to visit USSR
1981 Peter Sutcliffe the Yorkshire Ripper found guilty of murdering 13 women and attempted murder of seven others
May 21st
1840 New Zealand proclaimed a British colony
1927 Completion of first solo flight across Atlantic by Charles Lindbergh
1966 Cassius Clay still the greatest after British Henry Cooper failed to defeat him
2003 Over 2000 dead following earthquake in Algeria
May 20th
1506 Death of Christopher Columbus – in Spain, virtually penniless at 55 still believing he had reached Asia.
1588 The Spanish Armada sets sail on mission to conquer the English
1609 The sonnets of William Shakespeare are published
1802 France restores slavery and the slave trade in her colonies
1895 Income tax is declared unconstitutional in the US (good times!)
1910 End of the world didn’t happen – as comet passes
1939 First Chelsea Flower Show in London approx. 200,000 attending
1945 Birth of Cher
1961 Final voyage of The Orient Express – killed by jet travel
2006 The world’s largest hydro-electric dam, The Three Gorges Dam, is completed in China.
May 19th
1836 Anne Boleyn goes to the block
1649 England declared Commonwealth by the Rump Parliament
1898 Death of British statesman William Gladstone at 88, elected Liberal prime minister four times.
1935 Death of Lawrence of Arabia in motorcycle accident down Dorset lane
1945 Birth of Pete Townshend – guitarist with The Who
1994 Death of Jacqueline Kennedy
2007 Official opening of new Wembley Stadium
May 18th
1919 Birthday of Dame Margot Fonteyn, British ballerina and partner of Rudolph Nureyexv
1954 European Convention on Human Rights comes into effect.
1975 First woman, Japanese Junko Tabei, to reach summit of world’s highest peak, Mount Everest in Nepal (29,029 ft)
May 17th
1510 Death of great Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli aged 65 – penniless
1861 Birth of package holiday
1993 Rebecca Stephens first British woman to climb Everest
May 16th
1989 First successful hole in the heart operation carried out.
1991 Frances’s first female prime minister Edith Cresson
May 15th
1918 World’s first regular air mail service begins between Washington and New York
1928 Medics take to the Skies of Oz. Medical care went airbourne in Australia today with the launching of a Flying Doctor Service.
1936 Amy Johnson arrives in England after a record breaking return flight from London to Cape Town
1991 Cyclone death toll in Bangladesh climbs towards 250,000.
May 14th
1796 British physician Edward Jenner carries out the first successful vaccination against smallpox
1847 HMS Driver completes the first round the world voyage by a steamship
1900 The second modern Olympic Games open in Paris
1948 Birth of Israel – 400,000 Jews proclaim Zionist state of Israel
May 13th
1981 Pope John Paul II shot I Vatican by Turkish gunman but survived
May 12th
1812 Birth of Edward Lear
1820 Birth of Florence Nightingale
1969 Minimum voting age in Britain lowered from 21 to 18
May 11th
1812 British prime minister Spencer Perceval is shot dead in the House of Commons
1904 Birth of Salvador Dali
1941 Blitz batters London
1956 Elvis Presley first enters UK charts with Heartbreak Hotel
1985 The main stand at Bradford City football ground in norther England catches fire, killing 40 and injuring more than 170
1991 Cyclone death toll in Bangladesh climbs towards 250,000.
May 10th
1849 Death of Hokusai, great Japanese printmaker
1899 Birth of Fred Astaire, American actor, dancer and singer.
May 9th
1860 Birth of J.M. Barrie Sottish dramatist – best known as writer of Peter Pan.
1911 British parliament agrees to Home Rule for Ireland
May 7th
1840 Birth of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky
1926 The voting age of women in Britain reduced from 30 to 21.
1945 Surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies
2010 First Coalition Gov in UK since WW II led by Conservative party leader David Cameron
May 6th
1856 Birth of Sigmund Freud Austrian pioneer of psychoanalysis
1877 Sioux chief Crazy Horse surrenders and gives up all claim to Nebraska (Wild Wild West)
1910 George V accedes to throne on death of King Edward VII
1915 Birth of Orson Welles (Time Machine)
1937 The German transatlantic airship Hindenburg exploded while landing in New Jersey killing 35 of 97 aboard.
1954 Four minute mile broken by Roger Bannister.
May 5th
1818 Birth of Karl Marx
1865 First train robbery carried out – Ohio, USA
1963 Launch of Britain’s first satellite
1967 Flower-power anthem ‘San Francisco’ enters US singles charts
May 4th
1852 Birth of Alice Liddell – inspiration for Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass books.
1926 First ever General Stike – Britain comes to a standstill.
1970 Four students shot dead by US National Guardsmen at massed anti-war protest. 2 more shot dead at Jackson State University, Mississippi – nationwide demonstrations following President Richard Nixon sending US troops into Cambodia week before.
1979 Maggie Thatcher moves into No. 10!
May 3rd
1915 In Flanders fields the poppies blow – written by Canadian poet, John McCrae, this day.
1937 Gone with the Wind writer Margaret Mitchell wins a Pulitzer Prize for this her first novel
2008 Over 84,000 die as Cyclone Nargis sweeps through Myanmar
May 2nd
1519 Death of Leonardo da Vinci – Florentine painter – as famous for his scientific brilliance as for his art
1729 Birthday of Catherine II Empress of Russia – gained throne in 1762 after coup in which husband Peter III was murdered.
1904 Birthday of Bing Crosby
1975 Birthday of David Beckham, English footballer
May 1st
1851 Queen Victoria opens Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London.
1873 Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone died of malaria in central Africa aged 60.
1904 Death of Dvorak, composer of New World Symphony.
1931 Then tallest building in the world, Empire State Building in New York, opened by US President Herbert Hoover.
1967 Elvis Presley married Priscila Beaulieu.
1997 Tony Blair elected UK Prime Minister.
April 29th
1980 Death of Alfred Hitchcock ‘Drama is life with the dull bits cut out’. Through films like Psycho, Vertigo, and The Birds, legendary director proved the master of his art.
2011 Prince William marries Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey.
April 28th
1770 Captain Cook lands at Botany Bay
1789 Mutiny on the Bounty
2009 Mexico confirms the outbreak of swine flu in humans
April 27th
1521 Death of Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan at hand of locals in Philippines. (Tudor Explorers)
1828 London Zoo ‘inauguration’ – open to general public soon after.
1937 Opening of Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
1986 Chernobyl. Meltdown in nuclear reactor following fire at Chernobyl nuclear power station, Ukraine. No word of warning from Soviet authorities as radiation spread to neighbouring countries.
Birthdays
1791 Samuel Morse American inventor of the magnetic telegraph and Morse code
April 26th
1900 Massive fire makes 12,000 homeless in Hull and Ottawa area.
1937 Fascists unleash terror on Guernica. Civil war in Spain – bombing by German planes of medieval Basque town of Guernica – German and Italian forces supporting rebel Nationalist forces of Fascist leader General Franco.
1994 First Multi-racial elections in South Africa after three and a half centuries of white domination. Nelson Mandela of ANC tipped to become president.
Word of the Day
Illation – a deduction or conclusion
April 24
1660 The English Parliament votes for restoration of monarchy.
1719 Robinson Crusoe published in London.
1953 Scientists (British Francis Crick and American James Watson) crack the genetic code – publication of paper establishing structure and function of DNA.
1964 Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen loses her head to thieves.
1559 Birthday of Oliver Cromwell – Lord Protector of England 1653 – 8.
Word of the Day
Ikebana – the art of Japanese flower arrangement.
April 24
1858 Ben is back. The best and biggest bell in the world, Big Ben, is at last ready to behung in the clock tower of Westminster Palace, at 2nd attempt.
1949 The rationing of sweets in post-war Britain comes to an end, but is reintroduced 4 months later due to unsustainable demand
1986 Death of Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, for whom Ed VIII gave up his thrown. She was 89
1942 Birthday of Barbara Streisand – Oscar winning star of Funny Girl
Word of the Day
Zymosis – fermentation
From the BBC website today:
It’s 30 years ago to the day that the Hubble telescope was launched – and to celebrate its birthday, the veteran observatory has produced another astonishing image of the cosmos.
This one is of a star-forming region close to our Milky Way Galaxy, about 163,000 light-years from Earth.