History

We think that kids should enjoy history because lets face it, there’s a lot of it now, whereas a few years ago there was less.

And History’s a bit like eating a kipper – in a curious way it keeps repeating itself.

So it’s important for people confronted with big decisions, like politicians, to make them with an eye on what happened last time round. And it’s today’s kids that’ll be making tomorrow’s decisions to shape the future of our world.

that the current war in Afghanistan is Britain’s 4th?

Britain lost the First (1842) and Second (1880), the Third was a tie (1919) but Afghanistan got its way anyway, and the Fourth 2001 - ??? is still underway.

Not an easy place to win wars, then.

that pub opening hours were first introduced a week after the outbreak of the First World War under a new law called The Defence of the Realm Act.

It also made it a criminal offence to fly a kite, light a bonfire, buy binoculars and feed wild animals bread.

It also introduced British Summer Time (which means we STILL put our clocks forward 1 hour between March and October every year) as a clever wheeze to get more morning daylight hours so that weapons factories had an earlier morning start and so could make a few extra guns each day.

Hello… the war’s over now…..

that the telescope was invented 400 years ago in 1608 by the founder of modern science, the Italian Galileo Galilei.

It contributed towards his theory that the Sun was at the centre of the Universe.

Unfortunately for him, the Bible said “No it isn’t, the World is” and so the Church later made him deny his theory and locked him up under house arrest for the rest of his life.