Friday, 5 March 2021

Slaves in Anglo-Saxon Bristol

 I found this interesting article about slaves in Anglo-Saxon Bristol https://www.buildinghistory.org/bristol/saxonslaves.shtml 

Friday, 26 February 2021

Christopher Marlowe

The great Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe was baptised on 26 February 1564. We don't know the exact date of his birth because in those days they recorded the date of the baptism not the birth. https://localhistories.galexia.agency/a-brief-biography-of-christopher-marlowe/

Wednesday, 3 February 2021

Women's sports

 3 February 2021 is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Here is an article I wrote about the history of women's sports. localhistories.org/a-history-of-women's-sports

Sunday, 31 January 2021

Guy Fawkes

 Guy Fawkes was executed on 31 January 1606. They were going to hang, draw, and quarter him (hang him till he was unconscious then cut him down, and when he came around disembowel then dismember him) but when the hangman put the noose around his neck Fawkes jumped off the scaffold and broke his neck.

Tuesday, 24 November 2020

Darwin

 On 24 November 1859, Charles Darwin's book On The Origin of Species was published 

Thursday, 19 November 2020

World Toilet Day

 19 November is World Toilet Day. So let's hear it for the men who invented the modern toilet. In 1596 Sir John Harrington invented a flushing lavatory with a cistern. However, the idea failed to catch on. However, in 1775 Alexander Cumming was granted a patent for a flushing lavatory. Joseph Bramah made a better design in 1778. In 1883 a Mr. Ashwell invented the vacant/engaged bolt for public toilets.

There were public lavatories in London in the Middle Ages but the first modern public lavatory in the city opened on 2 February 1852. It was for men. One for women opened on 11 February.

 In Britain, a cesspit was once called a bog. The toilet was the bog room. When people stopped using cesspits and had flushing toilets they kept calling the toilet room the bog room. Soon it shortened to bog. Apparently the Australian word dunny comes from an old English word meaning a store of dung.