Table of contents for No. 104 in All About History

SCAN TO JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER How should we tackle the most confronting stories of history? As we looked to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of Operation Barbarossa and one of the most violent chapters of World War II this issue, I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot. History is obviously full of such stories revealing the darkest hearts of humanity, but the 20th century has more than its fair share. There’s something still very close about these events that, for me, demands a certain sensitivity. But it also deserves an honest, open approach. Couching the events of this war, or any other, in less than forthright terms does a disservice to those involved. So as we looked to chronicle the early months of the Eastern Front and…

It seems clear that while Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, had been preparing for and expecting the non-aggression pact he had signed with Hitler to collapse, he had not expected it to happen at 3am on 22 June 1941. There had been warnings from his commanders and intelligence from spies within Germany, but Stalin wouldn’t believe it. He was so convinced that it couldn’t be happening that when Operation Barbarossa began he thought it must be the actions of rogue German commanders and waited for an official declaration from the Nazi government, which came four hours after the attack had already started. “I think Stalin had no doubt that in the long term this pact was not viable,” says Professor David Reynolds…

From 1811 to 1820, Prince George, the eldest son of King George III and Queen Charlotte, was appointed as Prince Regent of the United Kingdom on behalf of his father. The king, who had suffered from recurring bouts of mental illness and breakdowns, had been deemed unfit to rule. Although George’s reign as Prince Regent lasted less than a decade, it was a time of great cultural, political and social change that subsequently became known as the Regency period. When thinking of the Regency – or 19th century England in general – the social season probably crosses your mind. Coinciding with the sitting of Parliament, members of the upper class, known as ‘the ton’, would arrive in London from their stately, country homes to engage in both politics and socialising.…

Perhaps the most famous image of a genie is Disney’s blue-skinned, wise cracking entity voiced by Robin Williams that appeared in the 1992 animated version of Aladdin. This version of a jinn, living inside a magical lamp and granting three wishes, sums up some of the most commonly understood attributes and behaviours of jinn for most in the West. While two stories in A Thousand and One Nights pertain to a jinn being trapped inside a brass container and feature wishes (not to mention tales of King Solomon trapping jinn to harness their power) it is the story of Aladdin that truly formulates the modern concept of the genie. Not part of the original manuscript, it was French translator Antoine Galland who added the story, along with the tales of…

EXPERT BIO — PROFESSOR ELIZABETH SCHAFER Schafer is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has written extensively on the performance history of Shakespeare’s plays and about women directors of Shakespeare’s work. The name William Shakespeare today is associated with high art and prestige performance. However, in his own time Shakespeare’s name, if it were known by many at all, was associated with the lowest order of entertainment. As a playwright, he worked in an industry that sat side by side with bloodsports, brothels, taverns and all sorts of criminality. “It would be hard to get to The Globe without encountering some aspects of what might be described as the seedier side of life,” explains Elizabeth Schafer, professor of drama and theatre studies at…

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was one of the most recognisable men in the world. As the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, he represented the British monarchy for almost 70 years and was the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch until his recent passing on 9 April 2021. Along with the queen, he did much to represent the royal family as an unchanging institution in a world that has changed almost beyond recognition since Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in 1952. However, on Philip’s part this security was in deep contrast to his early life, which was formed by war, neglect, tragedy and dogged endurance. In many ways his long, successful marriage and subsequent family compensated for the trials of his youth. Philip was born on 10 June 1921…

01 Ottoman artillery ineffective The Ottoman field guns on the far bank of the Tisza open up on the Austrian army, but because they’re out of range they are ineffective. In contrast, the Imperial guns wreak great havoc on the Ottoman infantry, causing substantial casualties and throwing their formations into disorder. 02 Sipahi charge repulsed A small force of Turkish sipahi on the near side of the river charges the Austrian lines, but Imperial dragoons shatter the attack. 03 Full-scale Imperial attacks Prince Eugene orders his entire army to advance against the Turkish infantry on the near bank and drive it into the river. The close coordination between the Imperial infantry and cavalry give them an advantage over the Ottoman infantry. 04 Bottleneck on the bridge Sultan Mustafa orders the…

25 May 1977 STAR WARS PREMIERES Released in a limited number of theatres, George Lucas’ Stars Wars quickly became a pop-culture phenomenon and a blockbuster hit. The film received critical acclaim and was celebrated for its groundbreaking visual effects, earning a total of six Academy Awards. Over four decades since the first film was released, the Stars Wars franchise remains as popular (and lucrative) as ever. 15 June 1921 BESSIE COLEMAN EARNS HER PILOT’S LICENCE Coleman became the first African-American woman and the first Native American to gain her international pilot’s licence. She earned it from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in France, as pilot schools in the United States had refused to train her. Known for performing dangerous stunts at air shows in the US, she died in a plane…

In the Neolithic period, cheese was a crucial part of the human diet, as milk was full of essential fats, proteins and minerals needed to survive. However, milk would quickly ferment in warm climates due to the lactic acid present, causing it to separate into curds and whey. The whey was then drained away using ceramic strainers, although we do not know when or why this first occurred. Nevertheless, this produced a fresh cheese that could either be eaten immediately or preserved with salt and stored for consumption later. It also remains unknown exactly how humans realised that rennet could be used for controlled coagulation in cheese-making. It is thought that the enzyme was discovered accidentally when animals’ stomachs were used to store and transport milk, with the residual rennet…

In the rear areas of the German advance, in those places under German occupation, a large number of partisan groups began fighting back against the Nazis. These groups were controlled directly from Moscow, with the tactical and operational aspects dictated by Lev Mekhlis, head of the Main Administration of Political Propaganda of the Army and NKVD. The groups were occasionally bolstered by Red Army soldiers who had escaped the slaughter, providing the partisans with knowledge and training. One particular unit that excelled itself in the early days of the movement was that led by Mihay Filipovich Shmyrev. On one occasion his unit ambushed a group of German soldiers bathing in a river, killing 25 to 30 of them. As a result of the partisan groups’ attacks, the Nazi forces conducted…

With the end of World War I came the Treaty of Versailles. Among many things limiting Germany were restrictions to its military rights, preventing it from producing armoured vehicles except for a few designated for security. To get around this, the German military ordered the Panzer II be produced under the designation Landwirtschaftlicher Schlepper 100, meaning that it was developed under the guise of being a farm tractor. This was common practice for Germany, and ensured that it wasn’t in short supply of armour when war broke out.…

The jinn (commonly called genies in the West) are taken seriously and regarded as real, tangible beings by a large segment of the world’s population. Millions of people in Arab North Africa, the Middle East and other Islamic regions have been brought up to regard the jinn as a normal, natural part of their world. This belief has been eroded to some extent in modern times, as educated elites in the Arab-Islamic countries, influenced by Western thought, have come to regard the jinn as essentially a spiritual, or even a metaphorical, concept. But Muslims do not reject the notion of jinn entirely. The holy scripture of Islam, the Quran, and the Tradition (or Hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad describe the jinn as an actual, intelligent life form – beings that,…

The Theatre Founded: 1576 Sitting just outside of the City walls and therefore outside of its authority, The Theatre was one of the first playhouses to cater to the new theatre crowd. It was built by James Burbage, whose son was a player, and would be the main stage for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men from 1594. However, its lease expired in 1597 and it was forced to move. The Curtain Founded: 1577 When The Theatre was forced to close and move south, The Curtain became the new stage for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, although it had been sitting close by for many years. The Curtain is so named for its location near the curtain wall of St John the Baptist Holywell monastery. Theatres in this time didn’t have curtains for…

Shortly after dawn on 11 September 1697 a high-ranking Ottoman prisoner named Cafar Pasha was brought before Prince Eugene of Savoy, the commander-in-chief of the Hapsburg Imperial army. The prince declared that if Pasha did not immediately divulge the location of Sultan Mustafa II’s army, a group of Croatians standing nearby would hack him to pieces. Desperate to save his own life, the prisoner began sharing everything he knew. He told the prince that the sultan’s army was in the process of crossing the Tisza River just below the village of Zenta. The bulk of the cavalry and the sultan’s baggage train had already crossed to the far side of the river, but the foot soldiers had not yet made their way to the east side – leaving them vulnerable…

Shortly after completing the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact on 23 August 1939, Adolf Hitler said: “My pact was only meant to stall for time… to Russia will happen just what I have practised in Poland – we will crush the Soviet Union.” Operation Barbarossa was a conflict entrenched in his perception of the Bolsheviks as a wholly Jewish enemy. “Hitler’s planning on the whole was ideologically driven, rather than based on sound military goals,” says military historian Anthony Tucker-Jones. Yet Hitler’s obsession with masterminding Operation Barbarossa would prove instrumental in its failure. Hitler gave various reasons for launching the invasion. “His main argument for conquest was Germany needing ‘Lebensraum’, or living space,” Tucker-Jones explains. “He claimed that Germany was overcrowded and starved of resources, and therefore needed to expand. The irony…

David Castleton, author of Church Curiosities: Strange Objects and Bizarre Legends, is always on the lookout for the quirky and unusual. He’s been on a journey back through British history, combing our churches and churchyards for weird artefacts, investigating the items’ histories and exploring the folklore attached to them. His book features such oddities as ‘witches’ cauldrons’, ships’ figureheads marking sailors’ graves, 1,000-year-old reindeer antlers still used in a day-long dance, and the skulls of saints from which pilgrims once sipped the waters of holy wells. This fascinating book begins with an investigation of pagan artefacts before examining both human and animal relics. A tour of churchyards comes next, with weird tombs, ancient yew trees and evidence of body snatching. Church Curiosities then descends into the eerie netherworld of crypts…

Fact versus fiction on the silver screen Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison Country: Egypt Released: 1963 VERDICT: Visually it veers from facts, but the story holds together 01The early part of the film concentrates on Caesar as he chases down his adversary Pompey to Egypt only to be presented with his head by the young pharaoh Ptolemy XIII. As shown in the film, Caesar was disgusted by this treatment of a respected Roman. 02 Cleopatra first gets to meet Caesar by being hidden inside a rolled up carpet and being brought to his private chambers. She later witnesses him experience an epileptic fit. These elements come from the writing of Plutarch and Suetonius respectively. 03 The film makes a big point of Cleopatra’s Greek…

Did you know? The word ‘tiropita’ translates to ‘cheese pie’ in English Ingredients • 12 sheets filo pastry, defrosted • 3 eggs • 500g feta cheese • 1 tsp black pepper • Olive oil Optional • 250g ricotta or cottage cheese METHOD The origins of tiropita, a popular Greek cheese-and-egg filled pie, are still debated. Pies have been a traditional part of Greek cuisine since ancient times and tiropita is possibly derived from placenta cake, a sweet honey and cheese dessert loved by both the ancient Greeks and Romans. In the 2nd century CE, plakountas tetyromenous – ‘cheesy placenta’ – was mentioned in Oneirocritica, the treatise written by the diviner Artemidorus. Often eaten for breakfast, tiropita is an affordable dish that can be made with a variety of cheeses and…