History Linkfest 9 August 2008

It's a walk through history in the links today, all below the fold:
_________________________________________________________

Murder, sex, adultery – the History News Network has it all in a post by Ronan Thomas asking whether Dr. Harvey Crippen, an American adulterer, actually poisoned his wife Cora in 1910 Britain. Dr. Crippen was executed for the crime.

"On August 6, 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140,000 civilians. Three days later, the B-29 bomber Bock’s Car dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 civilians." Mark Grimsley, a Professor of Military History, asks what if the Manhattan Project had failed and those bombs were never dropped?

At Walking the Berkshires, they are holding a small contest: name that castle


I have no idea which one this is. The flag it is flying is not British. It is tough to assess the terrain in black and white, but it appears to be near desert terrain, so its probably in the Middle East. I do not recognize the architectual style, but it does not look like one of the major Crusader styles. . . . hmmmm

Brits At Their Best walks us along the Heddon Valley and back in time to the black plague and the Peasents Revolt of 1381 – a revolt by men who refused to be turned back to serfdom and servitude.

Johnathan Jarret has an interesting post at A Corner Of 10th Century Europe on his meandering through some of the historical sites in and around Gairloch, Scotland.

At Religion in American History, John Fea blogs on how, at Williamsburg, the reenactments and displays accurately reflect the important role of religion in all aspects of life during the Colonial period. The wall between Church and State did not come into existence until the mid 20th century beyond a remark in a letter by Thomas Jefferson writ long after the First Amendment.

Westminster Wisdom has a very thoughtful post on the movie The Virgin Spring, a sort of retelling of the story of Job set in Scandanavia of a millenium ago.

The Irish Elk has another of his eclectic posts, Party Animals. I too wish there was still a Pat Moynihan fan club.

From Cardinal Wolsey, the remains of Shakespeare’s original theatre has been found.

Got Medieval tells us of some of the major events that occurred in the medieval world during the month of August, including:

. . . August 12th, 1099: The Battle of Ascalon, the final major battle of the First Crusade.

August 15th, 778: The Battle of Roncesvalles, where the shot heard round the world is made by Roland's brains exiting his ears.

August 15th, 1040: King Duncan I of Scotland killed by a fellow you may have heard of, goes by the name of Macbeth.
. . .
August 24th, 410: The Visigoths sack Rome and everyone has to change their desk calendars over from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages.

Do read them all.

At Rouge Classicalism, the remains of a vast, ancient city found in Northern Afghanistan. Speculation is that it might be where Alexander met Roxanne in about 327 B.C.

Mockery has the dual benefits of undercutting the object’s legitimacy and really t’ing them off. At Cliopatria, Ralph Luker has the Nazi reaction at finding themselves goose-stepping on the big screen to the Lambeth Walk, Oi..