Category Archives: history

Standing stones

Posted on June 23, 2014 by things magazine

We can only assume these old photographs taken by the Colonial Office and held at The National Archives are of the Bako National Park in Borneo. The rock formations shown in these undated images must surely have been lost to … Continue reading →

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There she blew

Posted on June 9, 2014 by things magazine

One of the aims of the explorers was to discover islands with fur-bearing seals, and these were found, inter alia in South Georgia, which had been re-discovered by Cook in 1755. Here, in 1902, were found two large cauldrons for … Continue reading →

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Never a cross word

Posted on May 12, 2014 by things magazine

The Guardian’s Crossword Blog is a regular source of the unusual and extraordinary. This week there’s a look back at the strange case of the D-Day Crossword Clues, the still unsolved story of amateur footballer, schoolteacher and crossword compiler Leonard … Continue reading →

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All roads lead

Posted on May 12, 2014 by things magazine

The London Evolution Animation (via MeFi – from the comments, Wonderful London in 1924 and 2014, by Simon Smith)) / related, The Mapping London Blog / Six months, 73,000 locations, ‘the aim is to collect at least one photograph from … Continue reading →

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Buzz bombs

Posted on May 9, 2014 by things magazine
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Chocks away

Posted on April 1, 2014 by things magazine

The UK’s lost, abandoned and obscure control towers / aerial views of UK Active & Disused Airports, Airfields, Heliports & Landing Sites / related, ghostly images of abandoned wartime airbases / Bunkertours, no longer updated but hunkering down for eternity … Continue reading →

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Oklahoma City sonic boom tests

Posted on March 25, 2014 by things magazine

The Oklahoma City sonic boom tests, or the Oklahoma Public Reaction Study, was conducted from February 3 to July 31, 1964. ‘A total of 1,253 booms were included in the program.’ ‘However, a large percentage (40%) of the public polled … Continue reading →

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Then, now and tomorrow

Posted on January 27, 2014 by things magazine

A thoroughly depressing gallery of pictures: Syrian heritage in ruins: before and after. Related, Dresden, before and after; Third Reich Berlin, then and now; WWII Coventry, then and now; San Francisco: Before and After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire; London’s … Continue reading →

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Climbing the ladder

Posted on January 9, 2014 by things magazine

One interesting detail that emerged from last year’s hugely depressing media-saturated celebrity trial was the revelation that Charles Saatchi was his own most avid fan (‘Elisabetta Grillo tells fraud trial of travelling round London four times a week to buy … Continue reading →

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The age of the train

Posted on December 7, 2013 by things magazine

Any historical discussion of British railways has to include the Beeching Report, ‘The Reshaping of British Railways’, now excoriated as ‘one of the most notorious government reports of the 20th century… The report often adopted an overly-simplistic analysis of the … Continue reading →

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