-
Feb 8, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall |David Pilling
In February 1272 Roger Godberd, a notorious outlaw, was hunted down and captured by Reynold Grey, High Sheriff of Nottingham. He was held in prison for four years and finally stood trial at Newgate in April 1276. Godberd’s background is somewhat obscure. Born in c.1220, he held the manor of Swannington in Leicestershire from the Quincy family, though he may have also had tenurial links with Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby.
-
Jan 19, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall |Damien Lewis
Mayne the SAS & the VCBlair ‘Paddy’ Mayne and a core of stalwarts were unwilling to let the history of this proud unit die with its dissolution. Instead, they took the Chronik of Schneeren town, unscrewed the brass bolts that held its spine together, removed the original pages – which would be carefully preserved for posterity – and within those massive leather covers they bound together the history of a unit.
-
Jan 17, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall
Chasing ShadowsIn the summer of 2003, I was one of around 1,200 American, British, and Australian intelligence personnel sent to Baghdad to form the Iraq Survey Group (ISG). The task of this unprecedented field intelligence operation was simple: locate the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that had sufficiently worried President Bush and Prime Minister Blair that they ordered an invasion without a UN mandate.
-
Jan 11, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall
Pride’s PurgeEarly in the morning of 6 December 1648, soldiers began to gather around Whitehall. Some were on foot, some on horse. A pale light was beginning to show in the sky. It was cold, and the atmosphere was edgy. At the heart of the mass of buildings that sprawled along the Thames and made up the Palace of Whitehall was St Stephen’s Chapel – the seat of the House of Commons.
-
Jan 9, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall |Adam Staten
In England, the phrase ‘Norman Conquest’ immediately conjures up images of arrows in the eye, the Bayeux tapestry and an abrupt transition from Anglo-Saxon rule to Norman feudalism. But the conquest of England was just one facet of the extraordinary expansion of Norman power throughout the 11th Century. The other major region of conquest for the Normans was the Italian peninsula and Sicily and here, just like in England, they established enduring dynasties and even kingdoms.
-
Jan 5, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall
Hampton Court: A Theatre of the Tudor MonarchyHampton Court arrived as part of the Tudors’ property portfolio at an odd moment in the dynasty’s history. It was not somewhere that they had inherited from their predecessors – like Westminster, the Tower of London, Greenwich, or Windsor – nor was it a place which they had commissioned – such as Henry VII’s ‘second paradise’ at Richmond.
-
Jan 5, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall |Philip Blood
Writing the history of one’s hometown is no small feat, even after living and studying its history for 25 years. Aachen became my home in October 1999, when I was invited to teach at RWTH-Aachen University during my PhD studies. The university was already an esteemed institution known for business, engineering, and medicine. Working in the social and economic history department, alongside German colleagues, provided an eye-opening contrast to my experiences at British universities.
-
Jan 5, 2025 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall
History at a Precipice: 1923Few topics are as important as ‘rise of the Nazis’. How did a man like Hitler, a loner with few friends and followers, end up becoming German Chancellor and Führer of the twentieth century’s most brutal dictatorship? The Weimar Republic is always a part of the answer. Weimar was the democratic political system that existed in Germany from 9 November 1918 to 30 January 1933, when Hitler was first appointed Chancellor.
-
Dec 14, 2024 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall
The 1st British Airborne Division was very disappointed to miss out on D-Day and the Normandy invasion. A few months later they fought with distinction at a battle that would later lead the participants to say proudly, ‘I fought at Arnhem.’At 11.30 a.m. on Sunday l7 September 1944, the first of 32 Dakota transport planes took off from Saltby airfield in Lincolnshire carrying the 509 officers and men of Lieutenant Colonel John Frost’s 2nd Parachute Battalion.
-
Dec 13, 2024 | 
aspectsofhistory.com | Bethany Hall
On this day in 1276, Sir John Deyville paid 578 marks to ‘Peter Beset or to the abbot of St Mary’s York’. In exchange he gained the right to recover his Yorkshire manor of Thornton-on-the Hill in Yorkshire. This sum was roughly equivalent to £400. John was a former Montfortian rebel who had caused enormous damage and loss of life in the civil wars. He had acted as Simon’s viceroy in northern England, occupying York in defiance of Henry III.
