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The Friday Digest 13/09/13

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THP Friday digest


The Friday Digest brings you the best of the week's history news gathered from the experts:

 

Flodden memorial. Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-23919568

* The 9 September marked the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Flodden, between the English and Scots at Branxton in 1513 which left almost 14,000 people, including King James IV, dead but what happened to James IV's body? This pivotal moment in Scottish/English relations is largely unknown to the public and for those (like me) who weren't aware of the details of the battle, History Extra's 60-second guide to the battle is invaluable and George Goodwin describes it in more depth for history enthusiasts

 

Dr Dave Wilkinson (left) and Ian Smith (right) in the bones lab at LJMU. Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23987494

 

* Bones found in the 1990s date 'earliest northerner', say archaeologists in Liverpool. Analysis showed that the leg bone, originally found in Cumbria, is more than 10,000 years old. The collections manager, Sabine Skae, from The Dock Museum, added: 'This collection tells an important story of the changing environment and early human activity in Cumbria.'


Aethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians. Image from http://www.tamworthherald.co.uk/Mercian-lady-Aethelflaed-honoured-Tamworth/story-19763905-detail/story.html

Aethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians,  is set to be honoured in a special ceremony in Tamworth Castle Grounds next weekend, marking 1,100 years since the Lady of the Mercians built a fortified settlement or burh in Tamworth. These defences stopped the Vikings from conquering Mercia and imposing Danelaw in 913.

 

FWW soldiers 

* A recent YouGov survey reveals poor standards of WWI knowledge but what can be done? Scott Addington has some suggestions...

 

Stonehenge, Amesbury, Wiltshire, Britain.  Photograph: Francis Dean/Rex 

* Stonehenge has been back in the news this week as English Heritage excavations confirm that it was built on a solstice axis. The discovery of manmade ditches along the ancient processional route to Stonehenge is a 'missing piece in the jigsaw' in our understanding of England's greatest prehistoric site, said English Heritage. 

A proposal to display human remains at Stonehenge has been endorsed by English Heritage governors, despite a druid's legal challenge. Two of the three sets of human remains were excavated more than 50 years ago and the third was uncovered during road improvement works in 2001.


Robert Peston Goes Shopping … the definitive man-in-suit approach.Photograph: BBC


* The Guardian asks can Robert Peston and Simon Schama reinvigorate the 'man-in-suit' genre of history programmes? 


A Tesco store pictured in the 1960s/70s. (c) Tesco


* Last week we spoke about the rise of the out of town superstore and this week BBC News has answered the question on everybody's lips, just how did Tesco come to dominate supermarket shopping


  Book shelf. Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/39136843@N05/3709418364/

 

* Looking for something to do this weekend? Find your local bookstore here and head to their @booksaremybag party! 

* Five things you didn't know about Wilkie Collins...

* Reading isn't just for the summer. Here's ten tips to keep up with your holiday reading habits.

* People have been promising 'a Netflix for books' for a long time now but the Oyster app has done it, offering readers unlimited books for $9.95 a month.

* Amazon are keen to convert readers to digital and their new Kindle MatchBook service aims to do just that...

* Most people know the name Rudyard Kipling thanks to The Jungle Book but unseen poems reveal his hidden rebellious side

* Everyone likes to sound intelligent but more than half of us lie about reading classic novels

Booker Prize-winning novelists Howard Jacobson and Margaret Atwood are to rewrite two of Shakespeare's plays in modern prose with Jacobson 're-telling' The Merchant of Venice, whilst Atwood tackles The Tempest.

 

Anna and Sigmund Freud arriving in Paris in 1938 after escaping from Nazi-occupied Austria. Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23965388


* Most people could proably summarise Freud's infamous ideas on psychoanalysis but the impact of his daughter, the only one of his children to follow him into the field is less well-known. 

 Women in North America sorting through collection of dried sphagnum moss (Image courtesy of Prof Ian Rotherham)

 

* Delegates to a three-day gathering in Sheffield will hear how the UK's peat bogs and fenlands played a 'hugely important' role during times of conflict but also how they have been overlooked or forgotten.

I have to say, I was intrigued by (and a little scathing of) this headline when I first saw it but it was a very interesting article!


The Government's Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham. Image from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8884736/Google-effect-means-spies-work-harder-says-ex-GCHQ-chief.html


* For the first time in the highly secretive Government Communication department's history, a former director of GCHQ is allowed to be interviewed about his time working in the Government Intelligence department

 

Elizabeth Taylor.

* Historical Honey have chosen sixteen disgustingly beautiful movie stars from yesteryear, but who would you add to the list? 

* Warning! These 1950s movie gimmicks will shock you!

 

Dhaqabo Ebba. Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-23985912 

* An Ethiopian reporter claims to have discovered the world's oldest living man.  Dhaqabo Ebba, a retired farmer in Ethiopia, claims to remember Italy's 1895 invasion clearly which if it were true, would make him 160 years old. 


Windows and a door from different periods of architecture - from Georgian to modern-day. Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23956650


Which era of house do people like best? Whilst most people nowadays would choose something Georgian or Victorian rather than something more modern, it has not always been this way as architectural historian Ellen Leslie explains, 'After World War II, people wanted modernism. Victoriana was synonymous with slums, soot and the kind of "dark satanic mills" described by William Blake'.

Which period of house style is your favourite?


The records of the gang members were part of a roll of old charge sheets from the West Midlands Police Museum. Image from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2417281/The-real-Peaky-Blinders-Victorian-gang-terrorised-streets-Birmingham-sewed-razor-blades-caps-headbutt-rivals.html


* The real 'Peaky Blinders': the Mail  shares the true story of the Victorian gang who terrorised the streets of Birmingham and sewed razor blades into their caps to head-butt rivals.


Tilda Swinton and Quentin Crisp in Orlando. Image from http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/sep/09/clothing-in-literature-margaret-atwood


* With London Fashion Week starting this weekend, style is a hot topic but are there really rules about what to wear? Clothing can tell you a lot about a person but just how important is it in literature

 
* On the eleventh anniversary of 9/11,  it is worth looking back at one world Trade Center being placed back on the New York skyline with the 'Tribute in Light' commemoration from 11 September 2012.
  

Which history and publishing stories have you enjoyed reading this week?


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