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The Friday Digest 06/02/15

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THP Friday digest

This week's update features Alan Turing's lost notes, the sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird and shopping under the Iron Curtain. 


American soldiers in gas masks (c) IWM


* How deadly was the poison gas of the First World War


IWM logo

* Historians have been debating charges at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) after it confirmed library cutbacks this week

 

Descendant of a Waterloo soldier? You can claim free ale
 

* Descendant of a Waterloo soldier? You can claim free ale (but only if you are from Durham and a descendant of the 43 ‘Waterloo Men’).  
 

 Napoléon Bonaparte - standing portrait by Isabey Emperor of the French

 

 

* Four forgotten elements of the battle of Waterloo


Captain Reginald D Levy DFC in front of Boeing 707 00-SJG in 1965 – the same aircraft he was hijacked in.


Hijacked by Black September: Sabena Flight 571.


Winston Churchill’s denture

 

* Fifteen of the strangest things to ever go up for auction.  


New Haven, Connecticut

 

* America and the Regicides


“In contrast, an elegant tailored khaki jacket, a white, pin-collar shirt and a pair of buffed-up riding boots worn with a flowing hopsack skirt. My dream film look is straight from Out of Africa. Subtle, beautiful and functional, what more does the perfect wardrobe need?” Laura Weir, fashion features editor


* Vogue staff pick the most fashionable film wardrobes


Every Best Actress Oscars dress from 1929 - 2014


* Every 'Best Actress' Oscars dress since 1929


aliens (1)


* Are we now living in the future predicted by classic science fiction authors?


Sun Studio, 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee

 

* The inescapable connection between the history of the blues and African-Americans’ ongoing struggle for civil rights.


Victoria Avery of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, with bronzes attributed to Michelangelo

 

Two handsome, virile naked men riding triumphantly on ferocious panthers are unveiled as (probably) the only surviving bronze sculptures by the Renaissance giant Michelangelo.


Francis Miller—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his I Have a Dream speech on Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington, D.C.


* The eleven speeches from the last two centuries that changed the world.

 

A lake near Cantona where researchers collected sediment samples to learn about the area's history of drought between A.D. 500 a

 

* The 650-year drought which triggered the abandonment of an ancient city.  

 Lotte Hass

 

* Been and gone: The woman who swam with sharks, and the man who booked The Beatles.  

 

Dawlish 1852 (c) Alamy

 

* The railway lines alarmingly close to the sea ... 


The new brigade will have the same number as the WWII version (PA)


The Army is setting up a new force modelled on the Chindits of Burma to use Facebook and Twitter in psychological warfare. Listen to author, Tony Redding, discuss the history of the Chindits on BBC Radio 4 here.  


David Miliband

 

* A brief history of politicians and awkward photos ... 


Moscow, 1990, David Hlynsky


* Thirteen images of what it was like to shop under the Iron Curtain.  


Balfron Tower, London


* The paper cut-out models representing brutalist architecture of London from the 1960s and 1970s

 

Sarah Bernhardt Shot in Paris in 1912, Les Amours d’Elisabeth, Reine d’Angleterre or The Loves of Elizabeth, Queen of England was a short four-reel French silent film based on the love affair between Elizabeth I of England and the Earl of Essex Photograph: Everett Collection/Rex
 

* Elizabeth I in TV and film, from Bernhardt to Blanchett ... 


Wolf Hall: Bring up the bodices ... how Tudor costumes of Damian Lewis, Claire Foy and Mark Rylance measure up


* Bring up the bodices ... how the Tudor costumes of Damian Lewis, Claire Foy and Mark Rylance measure up


Portrait of Thomas More from a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527. Photograph: Getty Images


* Wolf Hall is wrong: Thomas More was a funny, feminist Renaissance man.  


Cromwell's childhood playground - Putney Heath (shown here on a 1900 postcard)


* Did Thomas Cromwell ever live in Wolf Hall?

 

An extract from Alan Turing's notebookBonhams
 
 
* A secret Turing notebook could fetch up to $1 million at auction


Alan Turing's lost notes discovered as crumpled insulation in Bletchley Park huts


* Alan Turing's lost notes have been discovered as crumpled insulation in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park


resden's world-famous Frauenkirche in 1945 and as it is today. Photo: DPA

 

* On February 13, Dresden will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Allied air raid that reduced the city to rubble. Ever since the fires went out, the bombing has served as a propaganda tool for Nazis, Communists and the modern far right and critics fear that the planned ceremonies will serve as a rallying point for the far right.

 

Wikimedia Commons/The Atlantic
 

A recently discovered novel by Harper Lee, featuring characters from To Kill A Mockingbird, is to be published this summerGo Set a Watchman was written by Lee in the mid-1950s, before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, and features that book's narrator, Scout, as an adult.
 

* Despite criticisms from some quarters, Harper Lee is thrilled by the response to the announcement saying, 'I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions to Watchman.' 
 

* Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, and the sadness of a sequel.  
 

* How are fictional characters reacting to Scout's return

 

Bookshelf 


* Five books that took decades to get published.
 

* Ten of the biggest sequels from famous authors.
 

* The cult books that everyone should read ... 
 

 According to a new survey, reading for pleasure boosts self-esteem. 

 

 

Emojis_quiz 
 
Can you guess these classic first lines of novels

 

There may be continuing adaptation ahead

 

* The publishing industry has adopted digital with varying degrees of both enthusiasm and success but there may be continuing adaptation ahead ...  


 

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


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