Wilhelm Tell: Held oder Mörder?
Diese Frage hat sich eine neue Ausstellung im Neuenburger Museum für Kunst und Geschichte gestellt. Die Ausstellung führt zurück an den Ursprung der Tell-Legende.

WIKI: William Tell »

WIKI: Albrecht Gessler »

French as a Mother-Tongue in Medieval England
The Norman Conquest of 1066 by William the Conqueror marks the beginning of an era of French influence in England[1]. However, despite logical reasoning, French did not become either the official or unofficial language of England. William was not combining the lands of Normandy and England, and had no wish to replace language or culture. Latin and English were used for most documents and formal proclamations by William, and the English legal system was renewed, not replaced. After all, William was claiming legitimacy to his succession. Nevertheless, the upper class was almost completely taken over by (French speaking) Normans, and although the system was English, many of the legal proceedings and documents were in French.

It is important to know that there were various dialects of French being spoken on the continent at this time and throughout the middle ages. Norman French was distinct from Parisian or Continental French, and, with time, the French spoken in England by the Norman landed gentry became distinct. Scholars refer to the particular dialect of French as spoken by England-dwelling native French speakers as Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French.

One interesting question is how long these aristocrats kept Anglo-Norman as their mother-tongue. William’s wish to preserve English as the national language was successful and no doubt is directly (though not solely) responsible for the inhabitants of England speaking English to this day. Additionally, despite taking over the upper class and the legal system, the Norman descendants speaking Anglo-Norman were still completely outnumbered by the masses of English speakers in every other class. Modern scholars estimate that the initial migration of Normans into England after the Conquest was no more than 20,000 people including the army, a number that was roughly 1.3% of England’s population (Berndt 1965, quoted in Kibbee 1991). So how long did it take for the native Anglo-Norman speakers to give up their language in favour of English? » | Jacquie Heys | Copyright 2001

The Domination of French in England
The Norman Conquest. Toward the close of the Old English period an event occurred which had a greater effect on the English language than any other in the course of its history. This event was the Norman Conquest in 1066. What the language would have been like if William the Conqueror had not succeeded in making good his claim to the English throne can only be a matter of conjecture. It would probably have pursued much the same course as the other Germanic languages, retaining perhaps more of its inflections and preserving a preponderantly Germanic vocabulary..., and incorporating words from other languages much less freely. In particular it would have lacked the greater part of that enormous number of French words which today make English seem, on the side of vocabulary, almost as much a Romance as a Germanic language. The Norman Conquest changed the whole course of the English language. An event of such far-reaching consequences must be considered in some detail. » | Albert C. Baugh & Thomas Cable

Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain: Episode 1

Niall Ferguson: TV Historian Calls for GCSE History 'To Be Made Compulsory'
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: History should be a compulsory subject for British students sitting their GCSEs, the historian and broadcaster Niall Ferguson has said.

British schools are failing to properly teach children about major events due to a “junk history” curriculum, which has left standards at an all-time low, he said.

Prof Ferguson, 45, who has also presented a Channel 4 series of the world’s financial history, attacked the subject’s decline, arguing it was badly taught and undervalued. >>> Andrew Hough | Sunday, March 21, 2010

Studying History Is Vital - There Are Obvious Lessons for David Cameron
THE TELEGRAPH: Churchill and Thatcher had to win elections to rescue Britain’s economy and values, says Jeff Randall.

As part of its drive towards the lowest common denominator in education, Labour has allowed the teaching of history to vanish from the curriculum at many state schools. Thousands of pupils drop the subject at 13, and only three in 10 fifth-formers take it at GCSE.

The thinking behind this classroom vandalism is that history, along with pure sciences and foreign languages, is a “hard” subject, much more likely to be failed than less academic courses, such as leisure and tourism.

Under a regime that focuses on quotas rather than quality, little Johnny at the bog-standard comprehensive is encouraged to play the soft-option system. He gains a fistful of qualifications, but ends up knowing nothing of the past and can barely write a note to the milkman.

This is a shame. History has much to teach us in today’s financial crisis, not least that we have been here before in one form or another. The economy is in a mess, government spending is out of control, and our currency is being devalued. Desperate ministers, fearing disaster at the polls, seek to denigrate opponents by labelling them “toffs”.

Put another way: “Our finances have been brought into grave disorder. No British Government in peace time has ever had the power or spent the money in the vast extent and reckless manner of our current rulers... no community living in a world of competing nations can possibly afford such frantic extravagances... the evils which we suffer today are the inevitable progeny of that wanton way of living.”

This analysis, crisp and incontrovertible, could have been penned last week by David Cameron to sum up Gordon Brown’s shambles. It comes, however, not from the current Tory leader but Winston Churchill in the Conservative Party’s manifesto for the general election of 1951. Much has changed since then, yet the immediate political challenge facing Mr Cameron is not dissimilar to the task Churchill confronted 59 years ago. >>> Jeff Randall | Thursday, February 18, 2010

Jewish Documentary: Faith and Fate

Afghanistan, and a Lesson from History that Goes Unheeded
THE TELEGRAPH: Great leaders can see the bigger picture in times of conflict, says Irwin Stelzer

Reading Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders is a depressing experience. Not because of any flaws in this beautifully researched and wonderfully told tale of the Masters (Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill) and Commanders (General George Marshall and Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke, both chiefs of staff) who forged the strategy that won the Second World War. You leave this book unread this summer at peril to your understanding not only of the war, but of the relevance of that history to the policy decisions confronting whatever government British voters decide to trust with their fate at the next general election.

The baseball player Yogi Berra once famously said: "I came to a fork in the road and I took it." Britain's policymakers do not have the luxury of such choice-avoidance: nuclear-armed Pakistan is threatened by Afghanistan-based Taliban jihadists, Russia is on a roll, Islamic fanatics are threatening to continue terror attacks on our countries, British and American citizens are being trained in Afghanistan for suicide missions, Iran's mullahs are close to acquiring nuclear weapons, and North Korea is becoming the nuclear-arms supplier of choice for groups that wish to do us harm. In short, the threats Britain and America face might not be as visible as those presented by Hitler, but are in the long-run as dangerous to the survival of the West, especially because many are posed by non-state actors who do not have a "return address" should we seek to respond to any attack.

President Obama is sufficiently impressed with the danger posed by the Taliban to face down many in his own party and order a troop surge – though that Bushite word never passes the Obama lips – in Afghanistan. If this anti-Iraq war disciple of "soft power" feels the need to put 20,000 more American troops in harm's way, there surely must be good reason for concern. >>> Irwin Stelzer | Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Women’s Fashions: 1795 – 1948

Neville Chamberlain's Appeasement: World War II

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Some World History Courtesy of ‘Maps of War’
History of Religion
Imperial History
March of Democracy
Hat tips to Pierre of Québec, Alain Jean-Mairet of Switzerland, and of course to Maps of War itself.

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Television in the UK: BBC TV Begins

Part 2
BBC TV Radio Olympia 1936
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Nazi Germany in Colour (1939)

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

The History of Islam from a Muslim’s Perspective
Listening to this man speak about the ‘glory’ of Islam, one is left asking oneself the question: If this is all true, then why has the Islamic world fallen so far behind?


The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Bush the Universalist?
Confused thinking by the leader of the free world. We need wonder no longer why Islam is gaining so much ground here in the West. This president just doesn't understand what the West is up against! He simply will not grasp the nature of the jihad being waged against the West. It is surely time for him to read some history books! - ©Mark

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Mark Alexander