On the 18th of February, 1930, Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an aeroplane. I have been crazy about flying for much of my life and held a pilot’s license, but transporting a cow in a small plane? I think I’d have left that to someone else. Elm Farm...

On the 17th of February, 1801, a tie in the Electoral College between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson was resolved when Jefferson was elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was one of the most influential figures...

The Battle of Torrington was fought on the 16th of February, 1646. I recall that Admiral Sir John Byng was Viscount Torrington, but Torrington was a land battle in Devon. It was one of the last major engagements of the First English Civil War and marked the effective...

On the 15th of February, 1113, Pope Paschal II issued the Pie Postulatio Voluntatis recognising the Order of Hospitallers. I have written about the Knights Templar before, and the Hospitallers are the other major chivalric order that I’m aware of. The Knights...

On the 14th of February, 2005, YouTube was launched. As you can see, I have never really got the hang of posting on YouTube, but I do seek a lot of help from it in improving my golf swing and technique. YouTube is one of the defining cultural and technological...

On the 13th of February, 1692, the MacDonald Clan were massacred in Glen Coe. Glen Coe is one of Scotland’s most dramatic and evocative landscapes, a place where raw natural beauty and dark human history are inseparably intertwined. Situated in the western Highlands,...

On the 12th of February, 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was exiled from the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) was one of the most formidable moral and literary voices of the twentieth century. A...

On the 11th of February, 1144, Robert of Chester completed the translation from Arabic into Latin of Testamenti Morieni, a textbook on alchemy. Alchemy in medieval Europe was not merely a proto-chemistry obsessed with gold-making, but a rich intellectual tradition...

The feast day of Saint Scholastica is the 10th of February. In Fire and Earth, the second book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, Anthony has to solve a series of murders occurring on Saints’ feast days. I don’t think I used Saint Scholastica, but it would have...

On the 18th of February, 1930, Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an aeroplane. I have been crazy about flying for much of my life and held a pilot’s license, but transporting a cow in a small plane? I think I’d have left that to someone else. Elm Farm...

On the 17th of February, 1801, a tie in the Electoral College between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson was resolved when Jefferson was elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was one of the most influential figures...

The Battle of Torrington was fought on the 16th of February, 1646. I recall that Admiral Sir John Byng was Viscount Torrington, but Torrington was a land battle in Devon. It was one of the last major engagements of the First English Civil War and marked the effective...

On the 15th of February, 1113, Pope Paschal II issued the Pie Postulatio Voluntatis recognising the Order of Hospitallers. I have written about the Knights Templar before, and the Hospitallers are the other major chivalric order that I’m aware of. The Knights...

On the 14th of February, 2005, YouTube was launched. As you can see, I have never really got the hang of posting on YouTube, but I do seek a lot of help from it in improving my golf swing and technique. YouTube is one of the defining cultural and technological...

On the 13th of February, 1692, the MacDonald Clan were massacred in Glen Coe. Glen Coe is one of Scotland’s most dramatic and evocative landscapes, a place where raw natural beauty and dark human history are inseparably intertwined. Situated in the western Highlands,...

On the 12th of February, 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was exiled from the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) was one of the most formidable moral and literary voices of the twentieth century. A...

On the 11th of February, 1144, Robert of Chester completed the translation from Arabic into Latin of Testamenti Morieni, a textbook on alchemy. Alchemy in medieval Europe was not merely a proto-chemistry obsessed with gold-making, but a rich intellectual tradition...

The feast day of Saint Scholastica is the 10th of February. In Fire and Earth, the second book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures, Anthony has to solve a series of murders occurring on Saints’ feast days. I don’t think I used Saint Scholastica, but it would have...