Did you know that Winston Churchill narrowly avoided assassination in the Second World War? Or that Prince Albert helped Britain avoid war with the United States in the nineteenth century from his deathbed? In this riveting read, James Moore and Paul Nero reveal fifty of history’s most dramatic narrow escapes.
From wars that were averted to invasions, revolutions and apocalyptic scenarios that we avoided by the skin of our teeth, History's Narrowest Escapes chronicles such stories as how a Soviet Army colonel stopped the Third World War in 1983, and how Nelson’s heroics at The Battle of Trafalgar might never have happened if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of a humble seaman eight years before. Full of fascinating little-known facts, heroic acts, daring deeds and stories of serendipity, this book reveals how our history could have been very different … and possibly much worse!
In September 1983 the Third World War broke out when the USSR and the USA unleashed their formidable nuclear arsenals against each other. Eleven months later, the British Prime Minister was among those assassinated by a terrorist bomb during the Conservative party conference. Over four centuries earlier, in January 1536 to be precise, King Henry VIII was thrown from his horse which then fell on top of him, and he was killed.
Neither of these three events actually happened, but had it not been for a twist of fate they surely would have come to pass. This extremely entertaining, informative volume presents fifty chapters on the above three episodes, plus many more close shaves from the 1st century AD to the present day. The Second World War dominates the first few, as we learn how Britain nearly made peace with Hitler in May 1940 shortly after Neville Chamberlain resigned, how Winston Churchill narrowly avoided assassination less than three years later, how a ship came within an ace of exploding and thus devastating large parts of New York, and how one man was caught in the blast of not one but two atomic bombs in Japan in 1945 yet lived to the age of 93, surviving until 2010.
As for other events before and since, how was disaster narrowly averted when a nuclear reactor caught fire at Windscale in October 1957? How did France almost lose two of its iconic treasures, the Bayeux Tapestry and the Eiffel Tower? How fortunate was Charles Dickens to survive a train crash in which ten people died and fifty were severely injured, and how did Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Abraham Lincoln likewise cheat death at an early age? How was the American buffalo saved from almost certain extinction when hunting threatened to get out of hand? How did an anonymous letter foil the gunpowder plot, thus saving King James and the Houses of Parliament? How has the much-ravaged and much-restored The Last Supper, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest works, survived against the odds? Finally, were we really quaking in our boots at the end of the last century when the millennium bug threatened to derail life as we had known it, or was it all hype?
As well as great events and famous people, there are several tales of endurance and endeavour, when risks were taken and succeeded against the odds. Take the case of Leonid Rogozov, who operated on his own abdomen while on an Antarctic expedition in 1960 – somebody had to.
History is full of cases where Providence intervened in one way or another. It could so easily have been otherwise on many an occasion. I read this fascinating book from cover to cover, but it could equally be a good volume to dip into at random. The text is illustrated throughout, and there is a bibliography for each chapter.
Book: History's Narrowest Escapes
Author: James Moore and Paul Nero
Review by John Van der Kiste