Comments for Historical articles and illustrations

Comment on Was the Teddy bear named after ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt? by teddybears

teddybears — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:05:16 +0000

LOVE that you’re doing this! What a great idea.

Comment on Birth of Edgar Wallace by edgarwallace

edgarwallace — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:45:10 +0000

I’d love to visit here one day.

Comment on The survivor of Flight 508 by Amazon Jungle

Amazon Jungle — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:31:08 +0000

I remember being only 8 and Reading this incredibly powerful piece about a plane crash in the Amazon jungle. Only one girl survived out of 92 people as their plane fell apart in the sky. I read it time and time again, I WANTED to be that little girl I was reading about. To this day, I’ve already been to the Amazon Jungle and am planning another trip in a month. As I read through survival tips online, I came across her name. Curious, I wanted to know more regarding a girl’s survival after a plane crash. WOW! This was the exact same girl, now a successful woman, I had read about as a child in the Reader’s Digest! As I was reading, I found out that I will be taking the exact same route that she did on a plane to get from Lima to Pulcallpa! The dream of my entire life is finally manifesting! I will be studying with an Ayahuascuero Shaman for nearly a month in the middle of the jungle just like I did the first time. During my studies, I will be thinking about Juliane Diller Koepcke and how greatful I am for her incredible bravery on a journey far far from home.

Comment on Apollo 15′s buggy is now an abandoned vehicle on the moon by SameeraFarid

SameeraFarid — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:07:26 +0000

it’s indeed an interesting article, but i wonder in what condition that buggy would be now? if it was sent in late 70′s, then over last 30 years, didn’t it get worn out? any news about it’s current and present position?? has any astronaut ever made it back to that abandoned buggy??? i’d surely like to know!!!

Comment on A British naval catastrophe saw the sinking of the Good Hope and the Monmouth in 1914 by Pickles

Pickles — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:42:20 +0000

My great uncle, Able Seaman George King, was killed when HMS Monmouth was sunk in the Battle of Coronel. I believe he was just seventeen. When the telegram was delivered to my great grandmother some weeks later, a band was playing ‘Silent Night’ in the village since it was then quite close to Christmas, and thereafter that carol was never sung in the house, so sad were the memories it brought back. For many years we continued to avoid singing this lovely carol at Christmas out of respect for my grandmother, whose favourite youngest brother George was.

Comment on The primal fear aroused by snakes is a cautionary warning system by Michael1

Michael1 — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:30:11 +0000

Poor driver. Maybe it’s true, maybe not. Black mambas are tremendously agile and for short distances they can travel along the ground at 14 miles per hour (23 km/t) and for longer distances it can travel at up to 7-12 miles per hour. If you’re going to base this to a black mamba’s speed, this is probably true. But the alleged fact that this car ran over this snake but it still had managed to chase the car, I don’t know.

Comment on ‘The Jazz Singer’ by arqambaba

arqambaba — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:31:31 +0000

very bad

Comment on The Seven Deadly Snakes by Michael1

Michael1 — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:02:58 +0000

There is no doubt that is one of the most dangerous and lethal snakes but I think the number one snake in venomous snakes would be the black mambas.

Comment on The wildlife and precious vegetation of the Amazonian rainforests by amazonmike

amazonmike — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:16:13 +0000

The Amazonian plant life is also an amazing and unique aspect of life in the rainforest. The variety of plant species and their nutritional and medicinal value to both wildlife and humans is huge.
To be sure that future generations will get a chance to understand and view this unprecedented profusion of life we must all take whatever action we can to help preserve Amazonia.

Comment on The island paradise of HMS Bounty’s mutineers – Pitcairn by bonitas

bonitas — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 07:56:08 +0000

Republishing this article serves only to regurgitate a fictional story that has little to do with British Maritime History from which names and dates have been hacked. Fiction writers, by definition, are professional liars whose aim is make something which is not true, appear to be true. Such is the case of the beloved, ‘Hollywoodised’ legend called ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ and the trilogy of novels by Nordhoff & Hall upon which two MGM movies were screened.
British national archives confirm that there never was a ship named ‘HMS Bounty’. There was a ship known as ‘His Majesty’s Armed Vessel (HMAV) Bounty that was seized in the South Pacific Ocean in 1789 by a minority of its crew members identified, hunted down, charged, found guilty and punished as pirates or ‘piratical villains’, not ‘mutineers’. ( A mutiny is the military equivalent of a civilian Strike or industrial dispute).
These infamous men who for months had remained entrusted with the running of the ship between the hours of 4-8AM, were the ones who awaited their time before taking the vessel ‘just before sunrise’ while most of their shipmates were sound asleep. Then in cold blood they dumped almost half the ship’s crew (more than ‘a few’ as stated above) overboard into an open boat, 19 men in all, before sailing away and leaving their former shipmates 4200 miles away from the nearest known outpost of civilization. And with some prisoners aboard, the pirates subsequently set out on a leisurely boozed-up, drug high cruise around Polynesia, leaving in their wake a trail of kidnap, rape and bloodshed. On the island of Tubuaii they slaughtered over 60 polynesian men, women and children. Yet novelists revere and refer to them as ‘heroes’. Do heroes do what the pirates did?
There is no historical ‘controversy’ over what was the motive behind the piratical seizure of HMAV Bounty. For the last survivor of the pirates on Pitcairn Island was John Adams, alias Alexander Smith, who became a born-again Christian. In his latter years he confessed to visitor: ‘We had no real grievance against Captain Bligh’ . ‘We just wanted to return to our loved ones on Otaheite (Tahiti)’.
The guts of the story:- the ship had no security men (Marines) like every other Royal Navy vessel sent out to explore the South Seas, and the single young men (all the crew were volunteers) who turned into pirates had the perfect opportunity to cut themselves out a new life as virtual millionaires.
As for ‘Captain Bligh’ (Vice-Admiral William Bligh RN., FRS., 1754-1817) he was known and lauded by his contemporaries as the real hero of the sad saga that cost so many lives in the end. He saved his castaway crew with the exception of one man killed by cannibals, during a 47 day ordeal and boat journey from the ‘Friendly Islands’ (Tonga) to the East indies island of Timor. He returned to the South Seas with two ships and completed a highly successful mission only two years after the ‘Bounty’ expedition.
And, by the way, nobody aboard any of the 15 ships he commanded ever had any reason to dub him a ‘brutal flogging tyrant’ that anti-British elements in Hollywood portrayed in the movies. Fletcher Christian least of all as one of those volunteers who had sailed with ‘Captain Bligh’ on previous occasions.