Portal:History

Tiberius III (Greek: Τιβέριος, romanized: Tibérios), born Apsimar (Latin: Apsimarus; Greek: Ἀψίμαρος, romanized: Apsímaros), was Byzantine emperor from 698 to 705. Little is known about his early life, other than that he was a droungarios, a mid-level commander, who served in the Cibyrrhaeot Theme. In 696, Tiberius was part of an army sent by Byzantine Emperor Leontius to retake the North African city of Carthage, which had been captured by the Arab Umayyads. After seizing the city, this army was pushed back by Umayyad reinforcements and retreated to the island of Crete. As they feared the wrath of Leontius, some officers killed their commander, John the Patrician, and declared Tiberius the emperor. Tiberius swiftly gathered a fleet and sailed for Constantinople, where he then deposed Leontius. Tiberius did not attempt to retake Byzantine Africa from the Umayyads, but campaigned against them along the eastern border with some success. In 705, former emperor Justinian II, who had been deposed by Leontius, led an army of Slavs and Bulgars from the First Bulgarian Empire to Constantinople, and after entering the city secretly, deposed Tiberius. Tiberius fled to Bithynia, but was captured a few months later and beheaded by Justinian between August 705 and February 706. His body was initially thrown into the sea, but was later recovered and buried in a church on the island of Prote. (Full article...)

Vice Admiral Sir Alan Wedel Ramsay McNicoll, KBE, CB, GM (3 April 1908 – 11 October 1987) was a senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and a diplomat. Born in Melbourne, he entered the Royal Australian Naval College at the age of thirteen and graduated in 1926. Following training and staff appointments in Australia and the United Kingdom, he was attached to the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the Second World War. As torpedo officer of the 1st Submarine Flotilla in the Mediterranean theatre, McNicoll was decorated with the George Medal in 1941 for disarming enemy ordnance. He served aboard HMS King George V from 1942, sailing in support of several Arctic convoys and taking part in the Allied invasion of Sicily. McNicoll was posted for staff duties with the Admiralty from September 1943 and was involved in the planning of the Normandy landings. He returned to Australia in October 1944.

McNicoll was made executive officer of HMAS Hobart in September 1945. Advanced to captain in 1949, he successively commanded HMAS Shoalhaven and HMAS Warramunga before being transferred to the Navy Office in July 1950. In 1952, McNicoll chaired the planning committee for the British nuclear tests on the Montebello Islands, and was appointed commanding officer of HMAS Australia. He commanded the ship for two years before it was sold off for scrap, at which point he returned to London to attend the Imperial Defence College in 1955. He occupied staff positions in London and Canberra before being posted to the Naval Board as Chief of Personnel in 1960. This was followed by a term as Flag Officer Commanding HM Australian Fleet. (Full article...)

Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.

In 1933 Astounding was acquired by Street & Smith, and it soon became the leading magazine in the new genre, publishing early classics such as Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time" in 1934. A couple of competitors to Weird Tales for fantasy and weird fiction appeared, but none lasted, and the 1930s is regarded as Weird Tales' heyday. Between 1939 and 1941 there was a boom in science-fiction and fantasy magazines: several publishers entered the field, including Standard Magazines, with Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories (a retitling of Wonder Stories); Popular Publications, with Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories; and Fiction House, with Planet Stories, which focused on melodramatic tales of interplanetary adventure. Ziff-Davis launched Fantastic Adventures, a fantasy companion to Amazing. Astounding extended its pre-eminence in the field during the boom: the editor, John W. Campbell, developed a stable of young writers that included Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and A.E. van Vogt. The period starting in 1938, when Campbell took control of Astounding, is often referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Well-known stories from this era include Slan, by van Vogt, and "Nightfall", by Asimov. Campbell also launched Unknown, a fantasy companion to Astounding, in 1939; this was the first serious competitor for Weird Tales. Although wartime paper shortages forced Unknown's cancellation in 1943, it is now regarded as one of the most influential pulp magazines. (Full article...)

The battle of Marshall's Elm was a skirmish that took place near Street, in the county of Somerset, South West England, on 4 August 1642. The engagement occurred during the build-up to formal beginning of the First English Civil War on 22 August, while the Royalists and Parliamentarians were recruiting men in the county. The Royalists had established their regional headquarters in Wells, but were threatened by superior Parliamentarian numbers in the vicinity. The Royalist commander sent out a mounted patrol consisting of 60 to 80 cavalry and dragoons, which came across a force of between 500 and 600 Parliamentarian recruits travelling north across the Somerset Levels under the command of Sir John Pyne.

The Royalists set an ambush at Marshall's Elm, where the road rose out of the Levels into the Polden Hills. After a parley between the leaders was unsuccessful, the Parliamentarians were caught in the ambush. Facing musket fire from the hidden dragoons, and being charged at by the Royalist cavalry, they were routed. The Royalists killed around 27, and took 60 prisoners, including two of the Parliamentarian officers. Despite their victory, the Royalists were forced to withdraw from Wells, and later from Somerset altogether, due to their inferior numbers. (Full article...)

Literary Hall is a mid-19th-century brick library, building and museum located in Romney, a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the intersection of North High Street (West Virginia Route 28) and West Main Street (U.S. Route 50). Literary Hall was constructed between 1869 and 1870 by the Romney Literary Society.

Founded in 1819, the Romney Literary Society was the first literary organization of its kind in the present-day state of West Virginia, and one of the first in the United States. In 1846, the society constructed a building which housed the Romney Classical Institute and its library. The Romney Literary Society and the Romney Classical Institute both flourished and continued to grow in importance and influence until the onset of the American Civil War in 1861. (Full article...)

SMS Thüringen was the third vessel of the Helgoland class of dreadnought battleships of the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy}. Thüringen's keel was laid in November 1908 at the AG Weser dockyard in Bremen. She was launched on 27 November 1909 and commissioned into the fleet on 1 July 1911. The ship was equipped with twelve 30.5 cm (12 in) guns in six twin turrets, and had a top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph). Thüringen was assigned to I Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career, including World War I.

Along with her three sister ships, Helgoland, Ostfriesland, and Oldenburg, Thüringen participated in all of the major fleet operations of World War I in the North Sea against the British Grand Fleet. This included the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916, the largest naval battle of the war. Thüringen was involved in the heavy night fighting at Jutland, including the destruction of the armored cruiser HMS Black Prince. The ship also saw action against the Imperial Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea, where she participated in the unsuccessful first incursion into the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. (Full article...)

Brigadier General Sir Raymond Lionel Leane, CB, CMG, DSO & Bar, MC, VD, JP (12 July 1878 – 25 June 1962) was an Australian Army officer who rose to command the 48th Battalion then 12th Brigade during World War I. For his performance during the war, Leane was described by the Australian Official War Historian Charles Bean as "the foremost fighting leader" in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), and "the head of the most famous family of soldiers in Australian history", among other accolades. After the war, he served as Commissioner of the South Australia Police from 1920 to 1944, for which he was knighted.

A businessman and part-time Citizen Forces officer before the war, Leane was commissioned into the AIF and led a company of the 11th Infantry Battalion at the landing at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, on 25 April 1915. He rose to temporarily command his battalion, and was made a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), awarded the Military Cross, twice mentioned in despatches and wounded three times during the Gallipoli campaign. After returning to Egypt, the AIF was re-organised, and Leane was appointed as the commanding officer of the newly formed 48th Battalion, which soon after was transported to the Western Front in France and Belgium. Important battles that the 48th were involved in under his command included the Battle of Pozières in 1916, and the First Battle of Bullecourt and First Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. During the latter battle, he was severely wounded. During 1916–1917, he was mentioned in despatches three more times, was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George and awarded a bar to his DSO. (Full article...)

Haruna (榛名) was a warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I and World War II. Designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston and named after Mount Haruna, she was the fourth and last battlecruiser of the Kongō class, amongst the most heavily armed ships in any navy when built. Laid down in 1912 at the Kawasaki Shipyards in Kobe, Haruna was formally commissioned in 1915 on the same day as her sister ship, Kirishima. Haruna patrolled off the Chinese coast during World War I. During gunnery drills in 1920, an explosion destroyed one of her guns, damaged the gun turret, and killed seven men.

During her career, Haruna underwent two major reconstructions. Beginning in 1926, the Imperial Japanese Navy rebuilt her as a battleship, strengthening her armor and improving her speed and power capabilities. In 1933, her superstructure was completely rebuilt, her speed was increased, and she was equipped with launch catapults for floatplanes. Now fast enough to accompany Japan's growing carrier fleet, Haruna was reclassified as a fast battleship. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Haruna transported Imperial Japanese Army troops to mainland China before being redeployed to the 3rd Battleship Division in 1941. On the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she sailed as part of the Southern Force in preparation for the Battle of Singapore. (Full article...)

No. 1 Flying Training School (No. 1 FTS) is a school of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). It is one of the Air Force's original units, dating back to the service's formation in 1921, when it was established at RAAF Point Cook, Victoria. By the early 1930s, the school comprised training, fighter, and seaplane components. It was re-formed several times in the ensuing years, initially as No. 1 Service Flying Training School (No. 1 SFTS) in 1940, under the wartime Empire Air Training Scheme. After graduating nearly 3,000 pilots, No. 1 SFTS was disbanded in late 1944, when there was no further requirement to train Australian aircrew for service in Europe.

The school was re-established in 1946 as No. 1 FTS at RAAF Station Uranquinty, New South Wales, and transferred to Point Cook the following year. Under a restructure of flying training to cope with the demands of the Korean War and Malayan Emergency, No. 1 FTS was re-formed in 1952 as No. 1 Applied Flying Training School (No. 1 AFTS); it moved to RAAF Base Pearce, Western Australia, in 1958. For much of this period the school was also responsible for training the RAAF's air traffic controllers. Its pilot trainees included Army, Navy, and foreign students as well as RAAF personnel. The RAAF's reorganisation of aircrew training in the early 1950s had led to the formation at Uranquinty of No. 1 Basic Flying Training School (No. 1 BFTS), which transferred to Point Cook in 1958. In 1969, No. 1 AFTS was re-formed as No. 2 Flying Training School and No. 1 BFTS was re-formed as No. 1 FTS. Rationalisation of RAAF flying training resulted in the disbandment of No. 1 FTS in 1993. (Full article...)

Gillingham Football Club is an English football club based in Gillingham, Kent. The club was formed in 1893, and played in the Southern League until 1920, when that league's top division was absorbed into the Football League as its new Division Three. The club was voted out of the league in favour of Ipswich Town at the end of the 1937–38 season, but returned 12 years later, when that league was expanded from 88 to 92 clubs. Twice in the late 1980s Gillingham came close to winning promotion to the second tier of English football, but a decline then set in and in 1993 the club narrowly avoided relegation to the Football Conference. In 2000, the "Gills" reached the second tier of the English league for the first time in the club's history and went on to spend five seasons at this level, achieving a club record highest league finish of eleventh place in 2002–03. The club has twice won the division comprising the fourth level of English football: the Football League Fourth Division championship in 1963–64 and the Football League Two championship in 2012–13. (Full article...)

Pepi I Meryre (also Pepy I) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, third king of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled for over 40 years at the turn of the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, toward the end of the Old Kingdom period. He was the son of Teti, the founder of the dynasty, and ascended the throne only after the brief intervening reign of the shadowy Userkare. His mother was Iput, who may have been a daughter of Unas, the final ruler of the preceding Fifth Dynasty. Pepi I, who had at least six consorts, was succeeded by his son Merenre Nemtyemsaf I, with whom he may have shared power in a coregency at the very end of his reign. Pepi II Neferkare, who might also have been Pepi I's son, succeeded Merenre.

Several difficulties accumulated during Pepi's reign, beginning with the possible murder of his father and the ensuing reign of Userkare. Later, probably after his twentieth year of reign, Pepi faced a harem conspiracy hatched by one of his consorts who may have tried to have her son designated heir to the throne, and possibly another conspiracy involving his vizier at the end of his reign. Confronted with the protracted decline of pharaonic power and the emergence of dynasties of local officials, Pepi reacted with a vast architectural program involving the construction of temples dedicated to local gods and numerous chapels for his own cult throughout Egypt, reinforcing his presence in the provinces. Egypt's prosperity allowed Pepi to become the most prolific builder of the Old Kingdom. At the same time, Pepi favored the rise of small provincial centres and recruited officials of non-noble extraction to curtail the influence of powerful local families. Continuing Teti's policy, Pepi expanded a network of warehouses accessible to royal envoys and from which taxes and labor could easily be collected. Finally, he buttressed his power after the harem conspiracy by forming alliances with Khui, the provincial nomarch of Abydos, marrying two of his daughters, Ankhesenpepi I and Ankhesenpepi II, and making both Khui's wife Nebet and her son Djau viziers. The Egyptian state's external policy under Pepi comprised military campaigns against Nubia, Sinai and the southern Levant, landing troops on the Levantine coast using Egyptian transport boats. Trade with Byblos, Ebla and the oases of the Western Desert flourished, while Pepi launched mining and quarrying expeditions to Sinai and further afield. (Full article...)

The Battle of San Patricio was fought on February 27, 1836, between Texian rebels and the Mexican army, during the Texas Revolution. The battle occurred as a result of the outgrowth of the Texian Matamoros Expedition. The battle marked the start of the Goliad Campaign, the Mexican offensive to retake the Texas Gulf Coast. It took place in and around San Patricio.

By the end of 1835, all Mexican troops had been driven from Texas. Frank W. Johnson, the commander of the volunteer army in Texas, and James Grant gathered volunteers for a planned invasion of the Mexican port town of Matamoros. In February 1836, Johnson and about 40 men led a herd of horses to San Patricio in preparation for the expedition. Johnson assigned some of his troops to a ranch 4 miles (6.4 km) outside town to guard the horses, while the rest of his men garrisoned in three different locations in town. (Full article...)

The capture of Wakefield occurred during the First English Civil War when a Parliamentarian force attacked the Royalist garrison of Wakefield, Yorkshire. The Parliamentarians were outnumbered, having around 1,500 men under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, compared to the 3,000 led by George Goring in Wakefield. Despite being outnumbered, Parliamentarians successfully stormed the town, taking roughly 1,400 prisoners.

Around 800 Parliamentarians had been taken prisoner after being defeated at Seacroft Moor, and Fairfax plotted the capture of Wakefield to take prisoners of his own to exchange for his men. He marched his force from Leeds and split it in two to attack from different directions. After around two hours of fighting early in the morning of 21 May, 1643, Fairfax broke through into Wakefield. Goring, who had been in bed suffering from either illness or a hangover, rose and led a counterattack in his nightshirt, but to no avail and the town was captured. Fairfax gained the prisoners he needed and much ammunition. According to his own account, the Parliamentarians lost no more than seven men. (Full article...)

SMS Nassau was the first dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial German Navy, a response to the launching of the British battleship HMS Dreadnought. Nassau was laid down on 22 July 1907 at the Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven, and launched less than a year later on 7 March 1908, approximately 25 months after Dreadnought. She was the lead ship of her class of four battleships, which included Posen, Rheinland, and Westfalen.
Nassau saw service in the North Sea at the beginning of World War I, in II Division of I Battle Squadron of the German High Seas Fleet. In August 1915, she entered the Baltic Sea and participated in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga, where she engaged the Russian battleship Slava. Following her return to the North Sea, Nassau and her sister ships took part in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. During the battle, Nassau collided with the British destroyer HMS Spitfire. Nassau suffered a total of 11 killed and 16 injured during the engagement. (Full article...)

Thomas Crean (Irish: Tomás Ó Cuirín; c. 16 February 1877 – 27 July 1938) was an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer who was awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving (AM).

Crean was a member of three major expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott's 1911–1913 Terra Nova Expedition. This saw the race to reach the South Pole lost to Roald Amundsen and ended in the deaths of Scott and his party. During the expedition, Crean's 35-statute-mile (56 km) solo walk across the Ross Ice Shelf to save the life of Edward Evans led to him receiving the Albert Medal. (Full article...)