THE ULTIMATE
On this day, May 19th 1909, Nicholas Winton was born.
Nicholas Winton was a British humanitarian known for rescuing 669 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia just before the outbreak of World War Two. He created an organisation to find homes for the children and the safe passage of the children by train across Europe to Britain. He wrote to other countries, but only Sweden also took in the freed Jewish children. This way the children escaped the Nazis and the Holocaust, in which many of their parents perished. He refused to talk about his actions in Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic and Slovakia, for decades until his wife found his scrapbook with details of the children he had helped in the loft. Then in 1988 a BBC programme reunited him with many children, now adults, who he had saved. Nicholas was always modest about his role, saying that others had done the more dangerous work of collecting the children and putting them on the trains to safety. He also regretted the children he couldn't save, only a few on the last train out of Prague station survived the war. He also believed had other countries responded to his letters calling for homes for the children he could hae saved more. In 2003 he was knighted by the Queen for his services to humanity in saving Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia. In 2014 he was awarded the highest honour of the Czech Republic.
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On this day, May 14th 1607, the first permanent English settlement was established at Jamestown, Virginia, the beginnings of the United States of America.
The English settlers departed from the banks of the Thames in London in Deecember, and it took their three ships the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, four months to cross the Atlantic Ocean and make landfall on the coast of North America. Once on the coast they explored the area, and decided to build a settlement on an island in what they called the James River, which was away from the Atlantic Ocean, navigable (where boats could be used) and was easy to defend. The site was uninhabited by the Powhatan Native Americans, as it was seen as a swamp of mosquitoes unsuitable for farming. On unsuitable ground for farming, and with little agricultural experience amongst the settlers, whose main aim was hunting for gold, the settlement struggled to survive. Supplies from the local group of Powhatan Indians, ensured their survival, though relations with the Powhatan went through phases of friendship and warfare. The settlement also saw its settlers replaced by more colonists coming from England, and within four years the local Native Americans had been wiped out through warfare. Pocahontas the daughter of the Native American Chief of the region, befriended the English settlers, is said to have saved John Smith one of the seettlers' leaders from being executed; been taken hostage and converted to Christianity, and married John Rolfe, before travelling with Rolfe to England. As she was to travel back, with Rolfe and their son, Pocahontas died at Gravesend on the Thames, and was buried there in the local churchyard - where a statue of her now stands. John Rolfe began the successful cultivation of tobacco at the settlement, which became its main crop. The settlement was almost abandoned in 1610, but the leaving colonists were ordered to return, when more ships of settlers arrived from across the Atlantic Ocean, In many ways the Jamestown settlement that established the British colony of Virginia, and served for many years as its capital, began numerous features of the United States of America, its Anglo-Saxon (English/British) culture, such as its language, and the political system of rights and democracy. Whilst, it also led to th losses experienced by the Native American nations, as well as the use of slavery to grow plantation crops. On this day, May 12th 1820, Florence Nightingale was born in, Italy in the city of her name.
Florence became a pioneer of nursing and healthcare statistics, and gained celebrity status in Victorian as the 'Lady with the Lamp'. Against her family's wishes she trained to be a nurse in Germany, comleting her training in 1851. On reading of the casualties in the Crimean War 1854-56, she responds to a government call for nurses, and is given the headship of British female nurses in the East. She travelled from England to Constantinople, now Istanbul, and joined the hospital at Scutari, with her team of female nurses. However, their presence is unwanted by the male nurses already there. The conditions in the hospital were so bad and rat-infested that she realises that the soldiers are dying from the conditions rather than their wounds. When the female nurses were eventually allowed to care for the soldiers, Florence directed her team to improve the hygiene of the hospital. It was at this point that the Times newspaper ran a report of her checking on the soldiers in the night with her lamp, leading to her fame throughout Victorian Britain as the 'Lady with the Lamp'. She insisted on visiting the field hospitals to see the conditions there, where at the Balaklava hospital she was struck down with 'Crimean Fever'. During her time at Scutari, she developed the use of statistics to study the impact of the hospital's care, and to work out the health issues the hospital faced. Her devlopment of such statistics, and use of statistical diagrams, gave her the evidence to campaign for resources and aid from the government, as well as earning her membership of the Royal Statistical Society, the first female member. Back in Britain she continued to campaignfor the improvement of conditions in hospitals, establishing her own training school at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. The nurses who graduated from her training, then took her ideals and evidence based approach to sanitation across the country. Queen Victoria sent her a jewelled brooch designed by her husband Prince Albert. And Florence was made the first woman member of the Order of Merit, a group of 24 individuals and the Monarch. Florence Nightingale made nursing a respectable career, that was professionalised by training and she also pioneered the use of statistics in healthcare. On this day, May 9th 1860, Scottish author J.M. Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Angus.
J.M. Barrie is most famous for creating Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, who could fly and lived in Never Never Land, whilst living in London. Barrie devised the character on trips to Kensington Gardens, where he regaled the children of a family he befriended with Peter Pan's exploits. You can see the statue Barrie commissioned of Peter Pan, in Kensington Gardens near the west bank of the Long Water at the spot where he landed his bird's nest boat in Barrie's book 'The Little White Bird'. The statue hs been a favourite in Kensington Gardens since 1912. In his will Barrie gave the copyright to his Peter Pan books, and character, to Great Ormond Street Hospital, the famous children's hospital in London. A right that in 1988 was set into law by a House of Lords amendment to the UK Copyright Act, that means Great Ormond Street Hospital will always have this copyright. Find out more about this special connection via: https://www.gosh.org/about-us/peter-pan/history Find out more about his birthplace in Scotland at: https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/j-m-barries-birthplace As VE Day (Victory in Europe) is celebrated, which drew to a close the war against the Nazis across Europe, it should be remembered that it was an international Allied effort - involving citizens from the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union (the main part of which was modern day Russia).
What is more, the war effort was even more international than the above list of countries suggests, for at that time Britain was a globe spanning Empire, and British citizens from across its Empire leapt to the defence of what they saw as the 'mother country'. Around 10,000 British citizens came from the Caribbean to fight for Britain against the Nazis, around 5,000 served in the RAF. See the story of 95 year-old veteran, Albert Jarret who travelled from the Caribbean to serve in the RAF, and the campaign to give such contributions greater recognition with a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, on the BBC at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-52543809/ve-day-the-experience-of-a-caribbean-ww2-raf-veteran On this day, 8th May 1945, Victory in Europe was celebrated!
Nazi generals had been to offer the German surrender to the US leader of Allied forces in Europe, General Eisenhower, at Reims in France the day before. The Soviet Red Army had fought from the East to Berlin, and their Western Allies were progressing from the West towards Berlin following D-Day in 1944. On 8th May, official documents were signed in Berlin, by Hitler's successor, that all German forces would cease aggression at midnight on 8th May. Celebrations were held across the Western World, especially in the UK and the USA. Street parties occurred across the UK, with a mass gathering in London's Trafalgar Square down to Buckingham Palace. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth addressed the crowds, in the city they refused to leave, along with the wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, begged to join the crowds, and did so secretly, Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, had joined the war effort as an ambulance driver. In the USA the celbrations focused upon New York's Times Square, with President Truman, dedicating the victory on his 61st Birthday to the former wartime President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR. Both Churchill and Truman recognised that the victory was only half won, as the Allies were still at war with Imperial Japan in the Pacific. The Russians celebrate VE Day on the 9th May, due to the time difference. Banksy's latest artwork has been gifted to Suthampton General Hospital, and portrays the latest Superhero - a nurse!
The painting shows a boy playing with his toys, the old superheroes Batman and Spiderman have been discarded, as the boy plays with a nurse doll, as a child would a plane. The nurse is a caped crusader, wearing a female nurse's outfit, emblazoned with a red cross, wearing a face mask and in the superhero flight pose of Superman. The message is unmistakable, the nurses, the NHS, are the new superhero on the block in the era of coronavius, Covid-19. see more on the BBC at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52556544 Fundraising ace, and former World War Two soldier, Captain Tom Moore, has received the BBC's Blue Peter's highest award, its Gold Blue Peter Badge!
Captain Tom, has raised over £30m for the NHS charity, by walking 100 laps of his garden at age 99 before he turned 100 - in honour of the work doctors, nuses and healthworkers are doing to keep the United Kingdom safe. Then he teamed up with singer Michael Ball, and shot to Number One in the charts, with 'You'll Never Walk Alone', becoming the oldest holder of the chart topping position - beating Tom Jones' record at 68. Tom's grandchildren Benji and Georgia, aided Blue Peter presenter Lindsey Russell in giving the prestigious award, held by the likes of the Queen and David Attenborough, to Captain Tom. What can you learn from Captain Tom and his achievements, and his positivity? see more on the BBC's Newsround page at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/52551934 On this day, May 6th 1840, the 'Penny Black' postage stamp went into service. It was the first postal stamp service, for pre-paid mail. The self-adhesive stamp, carrying a portrait of Queen Victoria, would enable postage of a letter anywhere in the country for the cost of the stamp - simplifying the pricing of postage across Victorian Britain. May 6th, is also the birthday of former UK Prime MInister Tony Blair, born 1953. Tony Blair became the youngest Prime Minister sibnce 1812, as his rebranded Labour Party, New Labour, swept to a landslide victory in the General Election - ending eighteen years of Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. His victory came after having moved the Labour Party to the right, into the cehtre ground of British Politics, removing Labour's constitutional commitment to nationalistion, 'Clause iV', and embracing the Middle Class and business, and Conservative spending plans for the first term. Blair won two more elections in 2001, and 2005, before resigning from office in 2007, to be replaced as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, by his Chancellor, Gordon Brown. From 1997 to 2006 Blair didn't suffer a defeat in the House of Commons, with a range of significant achievements were racked up, Devolution of Scotland and Wales, creating the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly; a London Assembly and Mayor; reform of the House of Lords, by removing most of the Hereditary Peers giving it greater legitimacy, the Human Rights Act, bringing the European Convention on Human Rights into UK Law, and the Supreme Court, giving the judiciary greater independence; signing the EU's Social Chapter, guaranteeing Workers' Rights into law. the Minimum Wage, Sure Start and Children's Centres, as well as the greatest expense ever on Education. However, it was in the field of Foreign Policy that Blair became increasingly controversial and divided his party and the country. There were notable Human Rights successes with military interventions in Sierra Leone and Kosovo, and the UK came to the aid of a stricken USA by joining the invasion of Afghanistan to remove AlQaeda and the Taliban after the 9/11 terror strikes on New York's twin towers and the Pentagon on Washington D.C.. The protracted involvement in Afghanistan, and mounting military deaths for little gain drew criticism. Whilst, during this time Blair drew closer to the US Administration of G.W.Bush, and supported Bush's invasion of Iraq, with a claim to rid it of Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) programme. The intelligence for which mislead Parliament, and Blair gained approval for the UK's involvement from the Commons with the support of Conservative MPs, with many in his own party rebelling, as his formerr Foreign Secretary, then Leader of the House Robin Cook resigned. Again the protracted nayure of this conflict and doubts about its premise led to increasing distruct of Blair amongst the Public. May 6th, is also the date of a great sporting occasion, as in 1954 Roger Bannister became the first athlete to break the four minute mile.
On this day, May 5th 1818, Karl Marx was born in Germany, he became a key Political Philosopher, whist also influencing other subjects such as History, Sociology and Economics.
His key works include Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. Working with Friedrich Engels, who supported Marx and provided evidence of capitalism from his families factories in England. Marx put forward a radical version of Socialism, based upon the belief that all human history was that of a struggle between social classes, that eventually leads to a revolution before society advances to a new level of development. He claimed that capitalism was the last but one stage in Human History, where the divide between the Bourgeoisie (the few wealthy factory owners) and the Proletariat (the many poor workers) would grow so great that the workers would realise their position and hold a revolution, to overthrow capitalism, and replace it with a new system, Socialism, that would then develop into Communism, where all would be equal, without differences of social class. His ideas inspired Socialist / Communist revolutions around the world during the 20th Century, most famously Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, leading to the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). |
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