by David West | May 7, 2026 | News
The state funeral of King James I took place on the 7th of May, 1625. Yes, I hear the Scottish outcry. He was King James VI of Scotland before he was King James I of England. May I continue? It was, of course, held in Westminster Abbey. James wasn’t my favourite king....
by David West | May 6, 2026 | News
On the 6th of May, 1801, Captain Thomas Cochrane in the 14-gun HMS Speedy captured the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo. Thomas Cochrane (1775–1860) was one of the most audacious and controversial naval commanders of the age of sail, a man whose exploits during the...
by David West | May 5, 2026 | News
On the 5th of May, 1260, Kublai Khan became ruler of the Mongul Empire. Kublai Khan (1215–1294) was one of the most formidable rulers in world history, a man who transformed the vast, mobile conquests of the Mongols into a structured imperial state and became the...
by David West | May 4, 2026 | News
On the 4th of May, 1436, the Swedish rebel Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson was assassinated. My mother was a fan of Englebert Humperdink, but I know little about Englebrekt. I have posted about my Danish DNA, but I don’t have any from Sweden. Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson was a...
by David West | May 3, 2026 | News
The birthday of Henri Pitot on the 3rd of May, 1695, has caught my attention today. That’s for two reasons. I was a civil engineer and so was he. I have written about my passion for aviation, and he invented the Pitot tube which is how you measure an aircraft’s...
