All Orders Promptly Executed
August 13, 2014
Fifty years ago today, 13 August 1964, the last two people to be executed in the United Kingdom were hanged. The victim was a 53 year old van driver named John West, who was killed during a robbery in his home that went wrong four months earlier. A neighbour had been awoken in the middle of …
Fighting Footballers
August 6, 2014
On 6th August 1914, the Nottingham Guardian reported that three Nottingham Forest players, who were Army Reservists, had been called up. Within days of Britain declaring war on Germany they had, along with many hundreds of other Nottinghamshire reservists, left their homes and families to join their regiments. William Fiske (or Fisk) was born in …
Thirty minutes of your time; a lifetime to someone else
June 14, 2014
Today is World Blood Donor Day, organized by the World Health Organization to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary unpaid blood donors. Appeals for public donations have been made for over sixty years, and the NHS Blood and Transplant service estimates that currently 4% of the …
From Manuscripts and Special Collections, with Love
February 14, 2014
Nobody who has stepped into a supermarket or watched TV this past week can have failed to notice that today, Friday, is Valentine’s Day. Although the day has been associated with love since about the 14th century, sending Valentine’s cards and poems has only been commonplace amongst the general public for the last 200 years. Many …
Happy New Year!
January 31, 2014
No, we’re not almost a month late; today, Friday, is the start of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Also known as the Spring Festival, it is one of the most important festivals in the Chinese calendar. There are many regional variations in the celebrations, but traditionally the festivities last for several days and begin with …
Gunpowder, Treason & Plot
November 5, 2013
Four hundred and eight years ago, people in England awoke to news that a terrible plot to assassinate the King and his Parliament had been foiled. It gripped the popular imagination then, and today we still mark the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot with bonfires and fireworks. This engraving is taken from a children’s educational book, …
Cholera and Compassion in the Crimea
October 25, 2013
In the second of our posts marking the 160th anniversary of the Crimean War, we look at how although it achieved nothing in a geopolitical sense, the actions of one woman have undoubtedly touched the lives of millions of people. Very few people could name many of the battles the British Army fought in the …
![Camp of the 97th Regiment in front of Sevastopol [Ukraine], by James Robertson or Felice Beato, c. Sep 1855 (Ref: Ne C 10884/2/13)](https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscripts/files/2013/08/Ne-C-10884-2-13-240x120.jpg)
The Crimean War on Camera
October 15, 2013
This month sees the 160th anniversary of the start of the Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856), between the Russian Empire and an alliance of French, British, Sardinian and Ottoman forces. As the Ottoman Empire declined, various European nations attempted to assert their influence over its territories. Fighting took place mostly in the Crimean peninsula, …
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