by David West | Dec 17, 2025 | News
Wikipaedia tells me that the first account of a blood transfusion was published as a letter from the physician Richard Lower to the chemist Robert Boyle on the 17th of December, 1665, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. I recently made my 16th...
by David West | Dec 16, 2025 | News
On the 16th of December, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk Indians, dumped hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbour in protest against the Tea Act. It was a direct protest against the British government’s attempts to assert greater control...
by David West | Dec 15, 2025 | News
On the 15th of December, 533CE, the Byzantine general Belisarius defeated the Vandals, commanded by King Gelimar at the Battle of Tricamarum. The Vandals were a Germanic people whose story intersects with the declining power of the Western Roman Empire. By the time of...
by David West | Dec 14, 2025 | News
On the 14th of December, 1542, Mary Stuart became Queen of Scots on the death of her father, King James V of Scotland. Mary was just six days old. I have taken an interest in Mary since discovering Sir Anthony Standen, an Elizabethan spy, and the only man I know to...
by David West | Dec 13, 2025 | News
The Battle of the River Plate was the first major naval engagement of the Second World War, fought from the 13th to the 17th of December 1939 off the coast of South America. It pitted the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee against a small force of Royal Navy...
