The Jobbing Historian

Five Historic things you never thought you needed to know.#5 including the war against the Bishop of Urgell in 1934. Boris Skossyreff was a Belarusian ‘adventurer’ who styled himself Boris I. In 1934 he plotted a coup in Andorra.  Having declared war on the Bishop of Urgell the Spanish authorities sent a Civil Guard Sergeant and three constables to arrest him.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Skossyreff    6th September 1944 marked an end to a phase in the war as far as the British Public were concerned. The Black Out was replaced by the Dim Out; Fire Watching was abolished outside of the South East and compulsory Home Guard training was ended. The Fahrenheit scale was proposed in1724 by Daniel Gabriel of that name. He invented a mercury thermometer in 1714. The earliest reference I have found so far to Pineapples and Cheese on sticks is in the West London Observer 23rd August 1957.   In Notes to the Hostess: ‘Other fascinating things to add to your supper a...

  A Brief and Informative monograph on the role of the Pineapple in British History before 1750. At the start of any article on pineapples it is important to have the origin story.  Why break with a winning formula?  Pineapples are fussy beggars. They come from the steamy lands of Brazil and Paraguay. They require a ground temperature of 20oC and about the same in air temperature.  Pineapples demand light and rich soil.  All these things will make them difficult to grow in Northern Europe,  [1]  Europe would have to wait until 1493 for Christopher Columbus to bring them back to Europe and 1962 for someone [Sam Panopoulos] to put them on pizzas. [2] The arrival of the pineaqpple in the British isles is much more difficult to locate. The Signor-Lipps effect in palaeontology suggests we will never have an example of the first or last fossil of any species. When applied to pineapples this is probably the case as to UK imports. Jean de Lery called it the ‘f...

  Five and a bit Historic things you never thought you needed to know.#4 Captain Hanson Gregory claims to have invented the hole in the Middle of the Donut in 1847.  Florence Nightingale was against the idea that germs caused illness for many years. Louis Pasteur proved Germ Theory in 1861. Nightingale was against it, sticking to the idea of sickness was caused by miasmas.  In 1882 she seems to have round to the idea when she wrote ‘ “always have chlorinated soda for nurses to wash their hands, especially after dressing or handling a suspicious case. It may destroy germs at the expense of the cuticle, but if it takes off the cuticle, it must be bad for the germs.” The oldest officially adopted flag is Denmark’s in 1625.  Japan’s flag seems to have been designed in 701 but did go official till 1870. The flag most associated with the Confederate cause was not the original flag of the Confederacy but the flag of the Army of North Virginia. The Cementerio Moro is one of ...