This edited article about the Kaiser originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

The Kaiser took an obsessive interest in felling trees and was frequently photographed with axe in hand

The Dutch sentry on the Belgian frontier at Eysden swung round, his rifle at the ready.

Towards him, out of the November mist, came a group of people, some in the field-grey uniform of German officers. The sentry tensed as one figure, wearing a calf-length cape with fur collar, detached itself from the group.

As he strode up, the figure in the cape placed a hand inside its folds. The sentry expected to see a Luger pistol and prepared to fire. But the hand withdrew not a pistol, but a sword, and thrust it towards him, hilt first.

The astounded sentry lowered his rifle and as he took the proffered sword, he recognized its owner. It was the Kaiser – the King of Prussia, Emperor of Germany, the war-lord who had defied the power of 28 nations.

When the unknown Dutch soldier took the Kaiser’s sword it was a symbol of Germany’s total defeat.

Behind him the Kaiser had left a Germany being invaded from without and experiencing a revolution from within. His Germans, who four years ago had marched victoriously into Belgium at the beginning of the First World War, had mutinied against their own leaders. Germany was being devoured by her enemies – and was devouring herself.

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This edited article about the Gunfight at the OK Corral originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 700 published on 14 June 1975.

Wyatt Earp at the so-called Battle at the OK Corral

It was unusually cold for October. Cold enough for the low range of mountains which overlooked the small Arizona mining town of Tombstone to be white with snow. Cold enough for the four tall men walking so determinedly down Fremont Street to be wearing thick overcoats over their dark, three-piece suits.

An onlooker would have found it difficult to distinguish between these four men in their heavy overcoats. They were all fair-haired, all wore moustaches and all wore flat, wide-brimmed hats.

But the observant would have noted that one man, a little less tall than the others and of slighter build, wore a grey coat while the others wore black – and that he was wearing it like a cloak.

The reason for this was known only to the four men. Underneath the grey overcoat, the man was holding a double-barrelled shotgun!

The four men, walking at a measured pace, passed the alleyway leading to the back entrance to the O.K. Corral, on past Bauer’s butcher shop, and then turned left into the vacant lot between Fly’s Photograph Gallery and the assay office. In the vacant lot were five men dressed in the I attire of working cowboys.

A few words were exchanged, then there was the sudden roar of six-shooters and the savage blast of a shotgun firing both barrels.

When the smoke cleared, less than thirty seconds later, three of the cowboys lay dead.

This was the grim encounter which has become celebrated as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

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This edited article about transportation to Australia originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 699 published on 7 June 1975.

Emigrants and criminals alike grow excited at their first sighting of Australia by Barrie Linklater

In the early months of 1787, an atmosphere of terror and trepidation prevailed in Portsmouth. The windows of shops were shuttered, the doors of houses heavily barred. People hurried through the streets fearful of every shadow, suspicious of every footfall.

The focus of this fear was a fleet of eight dilapidated transport ships moored in the harbour. On board were 729 men, women and children, all of them convicted of such terrible crimes, all of them considered so criminal that they were to be transported to the other side of the world, to Botany Bay on the east coast of Australia.

At that time, transportation was second in terms of severity only to a sentence of death. However, in their own fearful thoughts, the pickpockets, gamblers, blackmailers, thieves and other criminals who waited in Portsmouth in 1787 faced prospects that made death seem kind. They were so terrified of their future in Australia, 15,000 miles from home, that they sat dull-eyed and stupefied, wept for hours on end or gave themselves up to fits of screaming hysteria.

The source of this abject terror was plain, straightforward ignorance. To the convicts, Australia was as remote as the stars and as completely unknown, a place full of unimaginable dangers and frightful horrors.

This was not the picture of Australia which prevailed among government officials who had chosen Botany Bay as a transportation site. Their much rosier, much more hopeful view was based on the enthusiastic accounts of Sir Joseph Banks, the eminent naturalist, who had sailed to Australia with Captain James Cook seventeen years before.

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This edited article about Sir Robert Peel originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 697 published on 24 May 1975.

One of Robert Peel’s thief taker’s, known as peelers, by Peter Jackson

The Man who was to become the founder of the London police force was born in 1788, the grandson of a wealthy Lancashire cotton manufacturer.

Robert Peel was sent to Harrow School and Oxford University, where he showed a brilliant aptitude for both Latin, Greek and mathematics.

In 1809, Peel became a member of parliament and soon made a name for himself as an able and hardworking politician.

At the age of 24, he became Secretary for Ireland, a most responsible position at that time, for the country was in a very bad state of affairs. Peel would not support Catholic emancipation, which aimed at giving Irish Catholics the same rights as Protestants, and this made him unpopular in Ireland.

But Peel did better as Home Secretary in the Tory governments of Lord Liverpool and the Duke of Wellington.

In 1829 he founded the London Police Force and it is from Peel’s Christian name that policemen received their nickname of ‘bobbies’, although they were first known as ‘Peelers’.

Peel reformed the criminal law by reducing the number of crimes for which people could be hanged. He also sought to improve the conditions in the prisons.

It was during this time that he changed his policy about Ireland, and made a speech in the Commons in favour of Catholic emancipation. This made him unpopular in England, and also helped to break up the Tory party.

Peel built up a new party from the Tories which became the Conservative party and still exists today. He was Prime Minister for a short time in 1834, and may have been so again in 1839 if he had not upset Queen Victoria by suggesting that she gave up some of her ladies-in-waiting who belonged to the Whig party. This the queen refused to do.

When Peel became the Prime Minister again in 1841, he improved Britain’s financial affairs and repealed (cancelled) the Corn Laws which were preventing thousands of poor people from buying bread because of the high price of corn. This angered many Conservatives.

After the return of the Whigs to power in 1847, Peel gave them much support until his death on July 2nd, 1850, three days after falling from his horse on Constitution Hill in London.

This edited article about the Dreyfus Affair originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 695 published on 10 May 1975.

The humiliation of Captain Alfred Dreyfus

As he stepped into the courtyard, the drums began to roll.

The courtyard was packed with soldiers standing stiffly to attention, and as he walked past them between his escort, he wondered if they all really believed that he was guilty. If they did, he supposed it was not surprising. The press had reviled him throughout the trial, and the court martial had found him guilty. His own voice, protesting his innocence, had been ignored throughout the whole affair. Why should they not think anything but the worst?

The drums stopped rolling as he was led before General Darras. White faced, he listened to the sentence being read. Then the General was standing close to him, shouting in his face. “Alfred Dreyfus. You are unworthy to bear arms. In the name of the French people we degrade you!”

Alfred Dreyfus looked wildly around him. “Soldiers! An innocent man is dishonoured. . . . ” He was still protesting his innocence as the warrant officer stripped off his badges and buttons. Finally, the warrant officer removed the sword from its scabbard and broke it across his knees.

Outside the wall, the mob was howling for his blood.

This agonizing moment of shame was only the beginning.

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This edited article about Rene Belbenoit and Devil’s Island originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 693 published on 26 April 1975.

Dreyfus, the only man to be released from Devil’s Island, was branded a traitor and  publicly humiliated

The voyage across the Atlantic to French Guiana was the most terrible ordeal the 700 prisoners had ever experienced. Bound for the penal colony on notorious Devil’s Island, they were kept in cramped steel cages for the whole of the passage. By the time they reached the island, many of the men were near to death.

Although they had been sent to the world’s toughest gaol, not all of the offenders were hardened criminals. Some, like 21-year-old Rene Belbenoit, had committed minor crimes which did not warrant such cruel punishment.

Since the colony was opened in 1852, some 75,000 convicts had died there. A few had succeeded in escaping, but only one man, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, had been released, when the accusations against him proved to be false.

From the moment he landed on the island in 1920, Rene Belbenoit took courage from the example of Dreyfus, who was kept in captivity in the colony between 1894 and 1899 on a trumped-up charge of giving military secrets to the German Government. Rene believed that he, too, was suffering from an injustice; and he immediately began plotting his escape.

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This edited article about the Mona Lisa originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 685 published on 1 March 1975.

The recovery of Leonardo’s stolen masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, by Andrew Howat

It was not everybody’s idea of fun, being a guard in the Louvre art galleries in Paris. Sometimes, it was frankly boring, despite being surrounded by some of the world’s greatest treasures, like the famous Mona Lisa portrait painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

Sergeant Poupardin shrugged as these thoughts came to his mind on the morning of 22nd August, 1911. “Overrated,” he thought to himself. “Take the Mona Lisa over there . . .” Then he gasped. Somebody had taken the Mona Lisa. Instead of the famous picture, there was a faded patch, and Sergeant Poupardin’s boredom was over.

The police were summoned, a meticulous search was made and suspects were questioned. But the culprit was not found.

It looked like becoming one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries until, two years later, an art dealer in Florence received a letter from a man named Perrugia offering to sell him the stolen painting.

Feeling that Perrugia must have a fake, the dealer went to see it in the man’s room. It took him only a few minutes to see that the picture was genuine, and only a few minutes longer for the police to arrive and arrest Perrugia.

At his trial, Perrugia told an amazing story. He had fallen in love with a girl who was the exact double of the Mona Lisa, after he had saved her from being attacked by a man with a knife.

The young woman’s name was Mathilde. When she died, Perrugia, obsessed with grief, planned to steal the Mona Lisa which, to him, was like a portrait of his love. It was exactly like her.

He visited the Louvre constantly and memorised its labyrinth of corridors, galleries and staircases. Waiting for the gallery to empty one day, he removed the picture, hurrying along the route he knew to the street.

Touched by his story, the court imposed a light sentence on the unhappy man who stole for love.

This edited article about the American cinema originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 684 published on 22 February 1975.

Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed

In the cosmopolitan cities of the United States, with their mixed races and nationalities, violence speedily became established as a way of life. The early film-makers realised this and a string of films were made which turned men like the trio above into a part of the Hollywood legend.

The big, black saloon swerves and skids around a corner at top speed, bullets spraying from a flung-open door. Bodies slump on to the pavement as, one by one, the members of the rival gang are eliminated.

“Cut!”

The director gives this instruction to stop filming and the “dead” men get up and dust themselves down, ready for another “take”, this time in close-up.

A gangster film is in the making, but this scene is not just a figment of a screen-writer’s imagination; it was happening in many cities across America in the early Thirties when crime had reached a frightening peak.

Gang warfare was front-page news and Warner Brothers’ Company in Hollywood, sensing that the public would appreciate seeing reality, however harsh, in their pictures, decided on a new policy. Movies based on headline items in the newspapers would henceforth be given top priority.

In 1930, they made “Little Caesar”, starring Edward G. Robinson. It was an instant success and started a cycle of gangster films which were immensely popular both in America and in Britain.

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This edited article about originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 683 published on 15 February 1975.

The theft of the Stone of Scone and its recovery, by John Keay

It was not the first time that Westminster Abbey had been the target of thieves but this time it was different. This time the three men creeping through the darkened building, ignoring the silent memorials to Britain’s heroes, were not after the Abbey’s treasures of gold, jewels, and silver. Their objective was a large lump of sandstone that is housed beneath the carved oak coronation chair.

Outside the Abbey, waiting anxiously in a Ford Anglia, Kay Mathieson heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Ian Hamilton staggering across to her carrying a piece of the stone. “It’s broken in two,” he gasped as he bundled the stone into the car, only seconds before a police constable approached and asked what they were doing there at 5.30 in the morning. The two men remaining in the Abbey, Alan Stuart and Gavin Vernon, waited until Ian and Kay had driven off and the policeman had departed before they made their way to collect a second car to carry the larger piece of the stone. But when they reached the car they discovered to their horror that they had lost the keys.

Meanwhile, Ian and Kay had returned to the Abbey, picked up the second piece of stone, and were heading out of London when, as luck would have it, they spotted their companions. As they sped away from the metropolis the four young students congratulated themselves on the successful accomplishment of their plan.

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This edited article about Queen Victoria originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 678 published on 11 January 1975.

Buckingham Palace

“Hey, you! What are you doing in here?” The porter’s indignant shout echoed through the marble hall as the boy, frightened out of his wits at being spotted, leapt to his feet and ran for his life. “Come back here you little rascal,” commanded the porter, making a vain attempt to catch the urchin as he scuttled past. But young Edward Jones had no intention of being caught so easily and, dodging the porter’s flailing arms, he darted down the nearest corridor. The chase was on. Through plushly-carpeted passages, grand banqueting halls, and state rooms, the boy tried vainly to avoid capture but no matter what he did he could not shake off the porter who was never far behind. Queen Victoria would certainly not have been amused if she had been aware of the hullabaloo in Buckingham Palace on that crisp winter’s morning in 1838. Eventually the chase entered the garden – a mistake on Edward’s part for there were several sentries at the gate and he was very soon captured by one of them.

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