Table of contents for Issue 160 in All About History

Originally spanning around 250km, Vietnam’s Cu Chi tunnels served as a vital military network for the Viet Cong. The tunnels were first built in the 1940s during the First Indochina War (1946-54) to connect villages and provide underground shelters for the Viet Minh as they fought the French. Dug into the clay by soldiers and villagers using simple tools, the impressive labyrinth was made up of narrow corridors that acted as spaces to store supplies and seek safety. By the time the Vietnam War was raging, the tunnels had been expanded across the Cu Chi rural district and stretched to the capital Saigon. No longer just a place for shelter, the Viet Cong utilised the tunnels to their advantage. They became a subterranean military stronghold where Viet Cong fighters could…

Director: Ben Affleck Starring: Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman Country: USA Year: 2023 01 The film revolves around Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) betting the entire Nike Basketball division budget on signing Michael Jordan to create the Air Jordan brand and save the department. This is broadly true as Nike only had a 17 percent market share in 1984. 02 A key turning point in the deal is Vaccaro going over the head of Jordan’s agent David Falk to speak with Deloris Jordan (Davis) in South Carolina. In reality, Falk helped arrange meetings between Nike and the Jordan family and was in favour of the collaboration. 03 Deloris is depicted as the brains of the Jordan team, negotiating his percentage cut of Air Jordan sales and leading negotiations. Michael Jordan insisted…

12 September 1992 FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN IN SPACE Alabama-born NASA astronaut Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space when she travelled on the Space Shuttle Endeavour as part of the STS-47 mission. She spent eight days in space and orbited the Earth 127 times while conducting scientific experiments aboard the Spacelab Japan module. The mission was Jemison’s only space flight. She left NASA the following year and embarked on careers as an entrepreneur, educator and author. 8 September 1960 ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S PSYCHO RELEASED The groundbreaking horror film Psycho was released in the US and changed filmmaking forever. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, it was loosely based on the crimes of serial killer Ed Gein. Psycho was one of the earliest…

South Vietnam On 8 June 1972, photographer Nick Út witnessed a horrific sight. Napalm had just been dropped on the village of Trang Bàng, forcing civilians to flee for their lives, and during the chaos a photograph was taken that came to be the defining image of the Vietnam War. It was a picture of young children screaming in terror, among them a naked, badly burned nine-year-old girl – Phan Thi Kim Phúc. The camera thought to have been used was this Leica M2, now in the collection of the Science Museum in London. The image, known as The Terror of War – or sometimes simply Napalm Girl – had a profound impact when it was published in the United States and immediately became a powerful symbol for the anti-war lobby.…

Dotted throughout the British countryside are over 3,500 grand country houses that were once the homes of the upper echelons of British society, some dating back as far as the Middle Ages. While many of these are now much loved tourist attractions, and some are still family residences, lots of stately homes have spent over a century struggling to survive. In the face of two world wars, seismic social change and climbing debt and taxation, many country houses have succeeded in surviving a period of history which saw plenty of their kind fall. WHAT IS A STATELY HOME? Stately homes in the UK primarily functioned as the residence of aristocratic and prominent families. Some of these houses have been owned by the same family for centuries and are often linked…

This dish is sometimes credited to legendary French chef Marie-Antoine Carême, who wrote about it in 1806. However, the first recipe can be traced back to at least 1802 when it appears in The Art of Cookery Made Easy and Refined by John Mollard, a restaurateur operating from the 1780s to the 1830s. It’s likely the dish, referred to in his cookbook as a “pulpton of apples”, was a preexisting dessert, so its exact origins remain uncertain. The recipe likely originates in Britain and its modern name probably comes from George III’s wife Charlotte. Despite this royal connection, Apple Charlotte is actually a very simple and frugal recipe since it uses cheap, readily available apples and bread as its main ingredients. Bread as an ingredient in desserts can be traced…

2 MAR 1965 OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER BEGINS Lasting just over three years, Rolling Thunder is a vast bombing campaign involving the US and South Vietnamese Air Forces and the US Navy. The operation comes to an end in 1968 in a failed attempt to convince the North Vietnamese to negotiate. 1969 DRAFT LOTTERY Following criticism that the previous US draft system is unfair, a highly publicised lottery is held at Selective Service Headquarters. The lottery utilises the conscripts’ birthdates and helps choose the date on which they will be drafted. The final draft lottery is held on 12 March 1975. 29 MAR 1973 LAST US TROOPS LEAVE VIETNAM Following the January 1973 peace agreement, the US begins pulling its combat troops out of Vietnam, with Master Sergeant Max J Beilke the…

King Edward III had enjoyed an amazing year. His archers had annihilated the French forces at Crécy on 26 August 1346, and the Scottish King David was defeated and captured near Durham in October. The icing on the cake was the surrender of the town of Calais to the besieging English army on 3 August 1347. Undoubtedly there would have been an air of optimism within the English court with a renewed sense of national identity. But a dark cloud was approaching from the east. Caffa (modern-day Feodosia) was a Genoese colony located on the Black Sea within modern-day Crimea. It was a flourishing trading settlement and port at the interface between Europe and Asia. Although the site had been purchased from the Golden Horde (a division of the former…

Otto the First’s East Francian kingdom was in the grips of a three-year domestic crisis, wrestling for power with troublesome nobles and a Slavic revolt in the north. The nomadic Hungarian Magyar raiders viewed Otto’s eastern territories with envy and saw opportunity among the disorder. Making a permanent incursion into Central Europe would allow for deeper, more profitable raids. To ensure a successful invasion, the Hungarians had first to defeat the Ottonian army in East Francia (in the region now broadly spanning Germany and Austria), a challenging task for any force. For the past four decades, Saxon rulers like Otto had pioneered dominant heavy cavalry, which would later become an essential component of medieval warfare. Improvements in German armour and shields provided their men with robust protection from the bows…

PEN NAMES An intriguing exploration of the literary pseudonym through 40 authors Authors: Kirsty McHugh and Ian Scott Publisher: Bodleian Library Publishing Price: £14.99 Released: Out now Did you know that Animal Farm and 1984 author George Orwell was actually called Eric Arthur Blair? Or that Lewis Carroll, best known as the writer of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, was really named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson? These are just two of many fascinating facts found in Pen Names, a new book by Kirsty McHugh and Ian Scott, curators at the National Library of Scotland. Exploring the world of literary pseudonyms from the 19th century to the present day, Pen Names seeks to understand and highlight some of history’s most interesting noms de plume and uncover the motivations behind them. It’s a manageable…