By James Aitchison Few Westerners are revered in China. But one Canadian doctor remains a national hero to this day, honoured in school history books and by statues throughout the country. How his name, Bethune, was translated into Chinese indicates…
By James Aitchison For most of us, the British honours system is as baffling as it is somewhat incongruous. In today’s world, many of its heraldic institutions seem relics of past glory. Arguably, the most curious of these is an…
By: Matthew Yoon Throughout human history, many events that took place in certain periods led to today’s world. In The Great Gatsby, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts the negative effects of those who pursued the American Dream through a…
(Featured Photo Credits: Roberto Rossellini, Rome Open City (1945)) By John Califano During the early stages of the “pandemic” and the ensuing global lockdowns, I spent serious time in my apartment unsure of exactly what the hell was going on….
By James Aitchison It was called “the shot that went around the world”. On 28 June 1914, in Sarajevo, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, a fervent Bosnian nationalist, shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian…
By James Aitchison T Tasmanian-born Errol Flynn was a lucky man. He literally stepped into Golden Age stardom on the strength of one minor film. While his acting talent was frequently dismissed, no other star looked so convincing in tunic…
By James Aitchison Courage in a society controlled by secret police was a rare commodity. In Nazi Germany, the party controlled the news media, police, armed forces, judiciary, travel, and all levels of education from kindergarten to university. Indoctrination started…
By: James Aitchison On 21 September 1914, a seven-stanza poem appeared in The Times of London. The First World War had begun in July that year as a glorious Boys’ Own adventure, a chance for every young lad to see the…
By: James Aitchison The debate rages in scholarly circles: what language did the ancient inhabitants of Scotland speak? Did the Picts possess a lost language, was it an Indo-European dialect, or was it simply Celtic? Our first clues can be…
By: James Aitchison The British Empire threw up hundreds of bizarre individuals who set out to find fame and fortune in remote corners of the earth. Scotsman Benjamin Boyd (1801-1851) was an ambitious young London stockbroker whose thirst for adventure…