Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 132 i All About History

SCAN TO GET OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER Tesla is a compelling combination of classic archetypal character traits that make him an endlessly fascinating figure. For starters, we have the maverick. A scientific genius who broke boundaries with his discoveries and wowed audiences with his inventions that seemed to border on the magical. Then, there’s the underdog. A great inventor who stood up to a corporate enterprise. Finally, the reclusive genius. A great mind, locking themselves away in an isolated locale to work and invent, undisturbed. No wonder his story has attracted so many curious minds over the decades and made Tesla a popular figure in fiction. These are all simplifications of the real man behind the mythos, but the romanticism of this framing is undeniable. Still, we wanted to get to…

A church has stood on the site of St Paul’s Cathedral in London since 604 CE. The original building is now completely lost, with very little historical record left to help historians and archaeologists determine what the first religious structure would have looked like. However, it is known that the initial wooden structure at the consecrated site was destroyed by the Vikings in 962 CE, while subsequent incarnations of St Paul’s burned to the ground, in around 1087 and during the Great Fire of London in 1666. After the cathedral’s encounter with this devastating fire, King Charles II appointed the architect Christopher Wren to design and rebuild St Paul’s for what would be tire final time. Wren already had a connection with the cathedral as he had been advising on…

Tesla acquired the Wardenclyffe laboratory, the site of his famous tower, in 1901 and with the backing of investor JP Morgan, construction took place over the next five years. The facility would prove to be one of the last projects designed by the legendary architect Stanford White before his murder in 1906. After it was abandoned, Tesla’s Wardenclyffe laboratory was a sorry monument to the inventor’s genius. However, in 2012 a campaign was launched to renovate the site. The intention is to make it the home of a permanent museum to Tesla and his life. Wardenclyffe is now the home of the Tesla Science Center. The battle to occupy the site took the group nearly two years. Yet there is one mystery that still surrounds the Wardenclyffe laboratory to this…

In June 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte installed his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne as a way of securing French control of the Iberian Peninsula. It turned out to have the opposite effect. The Spanish people disliked their feckless Bourbon monarchs, but they absolutely hated the meddlesome French. Within weeks, violent revolts sprang up across the country, and the overextended French forces found themselves isolated in hostile territory. In August, having resided in Madrid for only ten days, Joseph was forced to flee to the French border. To make matters worse, during this time a British expeditionary force under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley landed in Portugal, beginning the six-year Peninsular War. When Napoleon learned of what had transpired in Spain, he was irate and berated his generals for their…

On The Menu First found in the Stuart cookbook A Daily Exercise For Ladies And Gentlewomen by John Murrell, published in 1617. the recipe for Shell Bread is one of many sweet dishes included in the manuscript that records popular Stuart dessert dishes for banqueting. Shell Bread is not. in fact, a bread but several small cakes made in the shape of shells. To create the shell shape, the original recipe specifies that the cake batter should be baked in actual mussel shells. The final product looks akin to a French madeleine cake, which was first made in the 18th century. Did you know? The original recipe tells us that Shell Bread was also sometimes referred to as the Italian Mussel. Checkout THE ULTIMATE HISTORY COOKBOOK available now Ingredients •…

22 July 2013 PRINCE GEORGE IS BORN The first child of William, Prince of Wales, the heir to the British throne, and Catherine, Princess of Wales, George Alexander Louis was born at 4:24pm on 22 July 2013 at St Mary’s Hospital in London. Upon his birth, the newborn Prince George became third in line to the throne. Since the death of his great grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, in 2022, he has become second in line. 20 July 1969 MAN WALKS ON THE MOON After launching into space from Kennedy Space Center four days earlier, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to land on the moon. At 10:56pm on 20 July 1969, Armstrong descended from the lunar module and climbed down the stairs to the moon’s…

In Cambridge in 1650, a strange new enterprise began - the coffee house. Coffee houses were a particularly popular development during the reign of the Stuarts. Serving male-only clientele, they also forbade alcohol and soon became places for the societal elite to meet and discuss ideas. In these smokey houses, with the smell of roasting coffee in the air they would debate the latest theories in politics, philosophy, literature, art, theology and the developing sciences. These establishments were also popular with traders and businessmen who would meet to make deals and discuss business propositions. Two years after the opening of the Cambridge house, London followed suit. This establishment was run by Pasqua Rosée, a servant or valet to Daniel Edwards. The latter was particularly important when it came to importing…

1 BANQUETING HOUSE LONDON A masterwork by the noted architect Inigo Jones, the Banqueting Hall was designed to be a place where King James could impress his guests and host extravagant parties. According to Historic Royal Palaces, the Banqueting House was originally even more extravagant and colourful than it is now. Purportedly the exterior was built out of alternating honey-coloured and luscious pink stone. Unfortunately, in 1774 a process of resurfacing it with grey Portland stone would begin. However, the most famous part of the Banqueting House is inside. Installed on the ceiling of the main hall are nine paintings by the artist Peter Paul Rubens. According to University College London, the most renowned are three central canvases depicting the Union Of The Crowns, The Apotheosis Of James I and…

A Tesla coil takes ordinary household alternating current (110-220 volts, 60 cycles) and boosts the current to thousands of volts and thousands of cycles. This allows the Tesla coil to create giant sparks and other remarkable effects. A Tesla coil consists of several components, all carefully adjusted to work with each other: an input transformer, capacitor, primary coil, secondary coil, and large metallic terminal. SECONDARY COIL This is wound with fine wire. Because the primary coil has a few turns of thick wire while the secondary has hundreds of turns of wire, the two coils together boost the highfrequency voltage to thousands of volts. INPUT TRANSFORMER This device takes household current and steps it up from 110-120 to several hundred volts. CAPACITOR The high-voltage current from the input transformer is…

It is a common trope of conspiracy theories that there are hidden fraternities meddling in the world’s affairs. These secret societies are said to offer a network of power, an exclusive membership, and sometimes mystical knowledge. Despite being called secret, in fact many such groups are well known and have now been extensively studied by historians. The anxieties surrounding the existence of secret societies is not always unjustified. Many hidden groups have influenced history in unexpected ways. The underground Christians of the early Roman Empire managed to convert the state to their religion after all. Whether in the ancient past or present, nefarious or not, the power and influence of secret societies are waiting to be uncovered. Eleusinian Cult Unknown - 392 CE 21 kilometres outside of Athens lies one…

The world of the 15th century had become a powder keg of ideas, commerce, invention and renaissance in the arts. The old world was being left behind as a new, more hopeful and brighter future dawned. The printing press of Johannes Gutenberg brought with it the ability to print books and pamphlets at a speed and in quantities never seen before. Information and ideas could circulate through Europe, gathering pace as they went. Gutenberg’s inventiveness brought together the right elements, in the right place, at the right time. But if that moment had never happened, the world could have remained trapped in time. What might have stopped Gutenberg developing his invention? Johannes Gutenberg’s invention, the printing press with moveable type, was the solution to a well-known problem: how best to…

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) came into existence on 5 July 1948 and its establishment ensured that all Brits had access to free healthcare, regardless of their personal circumstances. The idea for a state-run medical service had been in the works since the beginning of World War II, but it was during the post-war period, when Britain was recovering from the conflict, that economist William Beveridge’s ‘social policy’ began to be put into motion by Labour health minister Aneurin Bevan. The founding of the NHS was not simple, with many doctors and nurses sceptical of the system, but Bevan worked to ensure all parties were on board with the idea. Now, the NHS is celebrating its 75th anniversary. The organisation, founded to create a better standard of accessible healthcare for…

You might drive one of the cars, maybe you’ve heard of the coil, but just how much do you really know about the late 19th century inventor and technological wizard Nikola Tesla? Mostly remembered for being part of an epic struggle against the American inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison, that tale is largely exaggerated as are many connected to the life of the Serbian-American genius. He spoke of creating wireless power, death rays and even flying machines, yet Nikola Tesla was no crank. Certainly a one-of-a-kind mind, he was the creator of the AC power, induction motor and hydroelectric power systems, inventions that helped shape the world as we know it. Nikola Tesla was born at midnight between 9 and 10 July 1856 in Smiljan in the Austrian…

“There is this myth that Tesla, in the years before his death, was an old man feeding the pigeons and basically living the life of a hermit in New York,” says Marc Seifer. “But what I discovered when researching my book Tesla: Wizard At War was that this wasn’t strictly true.” The final years of Tesla’s life during the 1930s are often overlooked, his increasingly outlandish designs and inventions dismissed. Yet in Seifer’s research he discovered that one of these creations was actually taken very seriously indeed - the Teleforce, or particle beam weapon. “If you send a very powerful beam of electricity it will spread out the further it goes,” Seifer explains. “So Tesla came up with the notion of a Particle Beam weapon, with the particles being tiny…

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei was born in Pisa, then in the Duchy of Florence, in 1564. Commonly known as Galileo, he is credited with being one of the greatest scientific minds of the 16th and 17th centuries and is sometimes referred to as the ‘father of modern science'. However, during Galileo’s lifetime he would not have been referred to as a scientist. He was a polymath: a natural philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. Attending the University of Padua, initially to study medicine but later mathematics, Galileo honed his scientific knowledge before beginning to lecture and theorise for himself. In astronomy, he made advances that redefined the way we’ve understood the universe ever since. Although it is a common misconception that Galileo invented the telescope (it was actually invented in…

REVIEWS The books, TV shows and films causing a stir in the history world this month Director: Shane Meadows Cast: Michael Socha, Sophie McShera, Samuel Edward-Cook Released: Out now Shane Meadows has described his new three-part series as a prequel to Benjamin Myers’ award-winning work of historical fiction, The Gallows Pole. Published in 2017 to rave reviews, it won the coveted Walter Scott Prize. While workshopping with the cast, Meadows told the press recently, he realised there was more story to tell about the origins of what is said to be the biggest criminal scam ever committed in this country. His decision to switch focus produced a brilliant television companion piece to the hit novel. In mid-18th century Yorkshire, a group of unemployed weavers and destitute farmers got their hands…

HISTORY VS HOLLYWOOD Fact versus fiction on the silver screen Director: Ken Hughes Starring: Peter Finch, Yvonne Mitchell, James Mason Country: Britain Year: 1960 01 A libel trial results from a card left by the Marquess of Queensberry, who disliked Wilde’s relationship with his son. Lord Alfred Douglas. The card in the film reads ‘To Oscar Wilde, posing as a sodomite’. However, in reality, it was probably ‘posing sodomite’. 02 Lionel Jeffries takes the role of John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry. Much is made of Queensberry’s reputation as a fighter; though he did not devise the legendary Queensberry rules of boxing, they were in fact named in his honour. 03 The lawyer defending Queensbeny is Edward Carson (played by James Mason). Carson and Wilde had indeed known each other…