The place to learn about the past and present,
Actually a rather nasty incident, when a landfill being used to build the Nice Airport collapsed, triggering two large waves which delivered death and destruction to the French Riviera The area around Nice in the South of France is the Mediterranean playground of celebrities, billionaires, and European royalty which boasts miles of white-sand beaches, sparkling... Continue Reading →
Click for part 2 Battle of Togbao, 1899 In Central Africa, a punative field force was destroyed in circumstances the French would nonetheless take full advantage of. The long-standing Kanem–Bornu Empire, centred around Lake Chad, was well past its zenith by the turn of the century. It had never been conquored before the ruthless warlord... Continue Reading →
Click for Part 1 Battle of Maeva, 1846 Although little is documented of the fighting itself, the French lost a shore party of marines in what has been described as a massacre by some, on the island of Huahine, modern-day French Polynesia. The Leeward Islands were divided between four kingdoms: Tahiti, Huahine, Raiatea and Bora... Continue Reading →
The fraudster and swindler who almost talked his way into becoming king of a tiny mountain realm, armed with a catalogue of lies and a manifesto for modernisation To be a vocational swindler, fraudster, conman, trickster, scam artist, is to be someone typically unconscionable; someone who is successful in one’s lies by telling them with... Continue Reading →
“History is written by the winners,” quipped Napoleon. Despite France's vast compilation of conquests at home and abroad, historians found space to record the occasions this superpower was mauled also. This four-part article includes the worst military calamity of every decade, from the founding of the First Republic in 1792 until Algeria's independence in the... Continue Reading →
It's a myth that since King William conquered, barely a single foreign attacker has set foot on British shores without some natives in connivance, but here are eight times Britain suffered seaborne raids you might not know about. Southampton and Portsmouth Sacked, Nearly Destroyed, 1338-9 King Edward III launched a military campaign in 1337 against... Continue Reading →
'We lose every battle but the last one' is a proverb referring to how the British prevailed in a catalogue of conflicts from the British Empire's inception in 1707 until its end in the 1950s, yet were mauled on many an occasion. This 4-part article includes the worst military calamity of every decade - failures... Continue Reading →
This French General is famous for the many, many wounds he suffered in battle but survived. You'll be amazed the damage this bullet-magnet lived through! Nicolas Charles Oudinot was born in Paris, 1767. He was born to survive against the odds as just one of nine siblings to reach adulthood. He joined the Kingdom of... Continue Reading →
It baffles people now as it did then, when hundreds of people around 16th Century Strasbourg danced and danced till they could dance no more. Read about its potential cause and the remedies phycisians came up with One Summer’s day in 1518 down a narrow street in Strasbourg, France an odd thing occurred; people turned... Continue Reading →
History and Things 