The Other Empire

Gosh. It's been 6 months. That's inexcusable. So just a quick note to recommend Radio 3's current The Essay series The Other Empire. It's on the history of the French empire, and a couple of episodes of it are still on iPlayer if you're quick.


History xls: the history of the world in a spreadsheet

For Every Year

Recent paddling in the backwaters of the internet has led me to the For Every Year project. It strives to amass "a story or poem for every year since 1400", and after two and a half years has got as far as the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621. I had half a mind to write something for 1625 on John Donne's sermon on torture, but I see that's now been bagged by someone more decisive. It will be interesting to see what event has been chosen, and how it's represented.

Recent creativity has celebrated Galileo's support for Copernicus's heliocentric model of the universe, as published in 1610's Starry Messenger; and the first production of The Tempest the following year. How now, moon-calf! how does thine ague?

History xls: the history of the world in a spreadsheet

New dates added

I've added most of  The 50 key dates of world history, according to Richard Overy, editor of the history of the world in book form. The only exceptions are things too general to assign to a specific year and a specific category.

History xls: the history of the world in a spreadsheet