Wimbledon starts today. That oldest of tennis tournaments. The only one played on grass, the one considered the granddaddy of tennis titles and the one with such a strict dress code (whites only) that in 2013 Roger Federer was asked to change his shoes because the soles were bright orange. The first Wimbledon championship was held on June 9th 1877 and was advertised as a “lawn tennis meeting, open to all amateurs”. Except women. Of course. Twenty two men showed up and played with wooden rackets and hand sewn flannel balls. Two hundred people watched. In 1884, women were allowed…
During a summertime trip to France a couple of years ago, I was able to visit the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, 15 miles outside of Limoges. It was here, on the warm sunny afternoon of Saturday, June 10th in 1944, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, 75 years ago today, that the Nazis murdered 642 villagers. Only seven people were lucky enough to survive. The villagers were brought together in the main square, believing that this was yet another routine identity check. Instead, the men were separated out and taken to six barns. Here, they were machine gunned and the bodies,…
Britain’s Industrial Revolution took place between 1760 and 1840. Roughly. There’s no hard start or end date, just a slow build up in the years prior to 1760 before things exploded. It is considered to be one of the most important periods in history because of the changes that occurred in a relatively short time frame and the huge impact it had on the fabric of society. In the early 1700’s, Britain experienced several things that made the Industrial Revolution possible. Advances in farming led to an increase in food supply and between 1760 and 1820 the population doubled from…
