AA309... passed!

The result was due to come out on the 12th but i am not complaining about it coming out early. I passed my course of this year AA309! I am very happy about this as it was my first Level 3 course and also passing this means that i now have a Diploma in Classical Studies. In two years time lets see if i can add the BA...

Call to scrap history lessons for children

A report into primary schooling in the UK will call for lessons in history, geography and science to be removed from the curriculum and replaced by what appears to be multi-disciplinary subjects and project work for example "instead of discrete lessons in history, design and engineering skills, pupils in York might do a project about the city's architecture encompassing all those skills".

If it really does work out that way then this could be a good thing. The study of history shouldn't be in a vacuum. To gain a full understanding you may need to study maps, climate, terrain (geography). You may also need to analyse large quantities of data (statistics) and consider how ancient machinery actually worked in reality (engineering). If that is how they could change the study of "history" then that, i feel, would increase the understanding of students and increase the relevancy of history to young minds.

At my final year at primary school my teacher, a Mr Saunders, took this project based approach to learning. We were allowed to study and research topics of our choosing and write up our findings in a project book (i did about 17 actually, i've always been prolific!) thus covering history, research, interpretation, presentation and design. And this was in about 1981 so he was very far-sighted!

German national photographic archive to be posted to Wikipedia

The German government (who should be greatly applauded) has donated it's national photographic archive to the world and is in the process of putting them on Wikipedia (or rather to Wikimedia Commons) as this was judged the best way for the material to reach the public. 100,000 photographs have been made available, eventually it is hoped 11 million others will join them.

A trio of samples.


Frigate SMS Thetis


Otto Von Bismark


Berlin, Unter den Linden, Neubauten

Course materials arrive

I received my course materials today for next year's study, which is the Open Uni's AA312 Total war and social change: Europe 1914-1955. The course officially starts in February but i'll probably start it at the beginning of the year so i can get a bit of slack in case it is needed. I am already reading for the course, currently P.M.H. Bell's "The Origins of the Second World War". Its an excellent book i got from BCU's (which is where i work) library. In fact i like it so much i am thinking of buying it next year for my military book collection.

World's oldest animal discovered after analysis of 1900 photograph

Jonathan, a tortoise on St. Helena, has been named the world's oldest living animal after he was identified in a photograph taken in 1900. He came to the island in 1882 and was mature already and so already at least 50 years old. Therefore it has been calculated that he is at least 178 years old.

He was discovered when a collection of photographs taken in the Boer War came to light. Experts have confirmed that the tortoise in the photograph is Jonathan (one assumes he has some unique distinguishing marks). Despite his age he still regularly mates with 3 much younger females, and so is an inspiration to all of us.

How the Genners changed over time

An interesting website which i found earlier is National Trust Names. This uses census data from 1881 and 1998 and can show on a map the frequency of surnames being found in various areas of the UK. Unfortunately there is no option to view the 2 maps side by side... so i created my own charting the location of people who shared my ancestor's name Genner.



The darker the colour the more Genners there are! As can be seen in 1881 mid-Wales was a common place to find Genners and also the South West Midlands (where my ancestor Mary lived after leaving India). However the most common place was Southall in NW London (not that easy to see on the map). By 1998 many have moved out of mid-Wales with the Black Country being the most common area though also more to be found in the North East, and a lot now in southern Wales too. Many seem also to have left London.

So what can this tell me? Well a major question that remains unanswered is where did Richard Genner (Mary's husband) come from. The fact Mary went to live in Gloucestershire with her new husband Thomas Butler i thought was primarily because he came from Stroud (which is recorded on census returns i have) but perhaps Richard Genner also came from the area, maybe he knew Butler from before he joined the army. However there were also a lot of Genner's in the North East and his regiment was the York & Lancaster Regiment which would have recruited a lot of their men (though probably not all, it would be interesting to know if Butler was in the same regiment) locally. So basically this doesn't help much at all, however is interesting all the same!

After Rome: Holy War and Conquest

It was on at the weekend though i did not watch it until last night, part 1 of a 2 part series written and presented Boris Johnson (the Mayor of London of course and former Tory MP) on the rise of Islam after the fall of Rome and the conflicts between Christianity and Islam.

There is a lot of history on TV these days but much of it relies of gimmickry and reconstructions, often the same blurry battle scene over and over again (just in case the viewer doesn't know what men fighting with swords looks like). This programme refreshingly did not, it was presented in a simple style: Boris in various locations and talking to a number of experts, with a bit of architecture and art thrown in. Unlike many history programmes on TV i felt this one actually treated me as intelligent, which is nice. Part 2 is on next Saturday.

Roman credit crunch

Oxford historian Philip Kay has discovered what he believes was the first "credit crunch" or at least a major financial crisis in Rome in the early 1st century BCE. He says that in 66BCE Cicero gave a speech where he alluded to events in 88BCE where Mithridates VI of Pontus invaded Roman Asia. The invasion cost Rome so much money that credit was destroyed in Rome. The loss of the monies in Asia having a knock-on effect to Rome said to be similar to how the US sub-prime has had a knock-on effect to the UK economy. Yeah OK well its got Kay in the papers anyway.

Unfortunately Kay continues how Rome got itself out of the financial mess is not yet known.