The death of Johannes Gutenberg – 3 February 1468
Where would humanity be without the stone axe, the wheel, the plough, the compass and the steam engine? Likewise the printing press, whose inventor Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg died on this day in 1468. “Yes but” I hear you bookish pedants cry, “didn’t the Chinese T’ang Dynasty have a method of printing from [...]
Map of Stratford-upon-Avon
“I like this place and willingly could spend time in it” – William Shakespeare in As you Like It Stratford-upon-Avon is world famous as the birthplace of the English language’s most famous son: William Shakespeare. I too was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. And I have just finished drawing a map of the town; it’s [...]
100 years since Scott reaches South Pole
The stories of the early polar explorers are some of the most inspirational and moving tales that I know. And so I couldn’t let the day go by without noting that it was one hundred years ago today, that this photo was taken of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his men at the South Pole. [...]
The self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi – 17 December 2010
What a magic carpet ride it’s been this past year for our brothers and sisters in North Africa and the Middle East. Egypt’s Mubarak-led police state deposed, Libya’s mad dog Gaddafi fittingly gunned down in a sewer. And the struggle continues for reform in Bahrain, Yemenis fight for their rights, and brave and bullied Syrians [...]
The death of Mary Leakey – 9 December 1996
This article also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. No matter who we are and what we think, the beautiful truth is that we are all children of Africa. It was in no small part the painstaking work of Mary Leakey that revealed this. For more than 50 years under hot African skies, [...]
The death of Hernán Cortés – 2 December 1547
This article also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. “He came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns, Looking for the new world in that palace in the sun”- from Cortez the Killer by Neil Young Hernán (Hernando) Cortés was a glory-seeking, ruthless murderer capable of barbaric cruelty, who more or [...]
The death of Dr Jane Elizabeth Hodgson – 23 October 2006
This article also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. There are many reasons why a pregnancy may be unwanted. A woman may have no access to contraception or already have too many mouths to feed. It may endanger her health, even her life. She may have been raped. The foetus may not be [...]
The Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest – 14 October 1066
This article also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. The British Isles has a long history of invaders: Angles, Danes, Saxons, Vikings. But on the 28 September 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, landed at Pevensey in Sussex an invasion force on this scale had not been since the Romans, a thousand years [...]
The death of Marie Stopes – 2 October 1958
This article also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. “I have some things to say about sex, which, so far as I am aware, have not yet been said … things which seem to me to be of profound importance to men and women who hope to make their marriage beautiful.” When my [...]
The death of Frida Kahlo – 13 July 1954
“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” …and Frida’s reality was a lifetime of extreme physical pain and tortuous suffering, punctuated with a tempestuous emotional turbulence. Artist Frida Kahlo was born in 1907, the daughter of Hungarian Jewish father and indigenous Mexican mother. She [...]
