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31 Jul, 22 tweets, 7 min read
A few people have asked if I have a list of my history threads. I don't keep one as they're a spontaneous thing mostly. But here's a few I remember.

Let's start with how the Knights Hospitaller had one of the largest airforces in Europe after WW2. Really.
Then you've got Able Seacat Simon. The only cat ever to be awarded the Dickin Medal, the highest award for gallantry and service that a British military animal can be awarded.

How the allies used the 650 year old Anglo-Portuguese alliance twice in WW2 to avoid disaster.
How WW2 rationing almost killed Wensleydale cheese, and DID eviscerate a lot of British cheesemaking history and tradition.
Hidden soldier doodles under the Western front, and how they show us that WW1 soldiers were really just like us.
The long forgotten Battle of Pulo Aura, where Commodore Dance defeated a French battle squadron with only some trade ships, tins of paint, and by MASSIVELY overplaying a bad hand.
Jim Steinman's long lost Batman Musical, and how you can still listen to bits of it if you know where to look.
Mary Burchell, the Mills & Boon author who wrote books to fund her efforts to get Jews to safety before WW2.
Robert Smallbones, minor diplomat creator of the Smallbones scheme, through which up to 40,000 Jews were safely evacuated to Britain before WW2 (the scheme's success was kept secret to avoid spooking the British public about "too many furriners").
The impact of being offered a good cup of tea in the Blitz.
How military terms shape our language, and why a lot of football clubs have a 'Kop End'
How a bunch of Greek Cypriot wrestlers started Soho's Spanish quarter.
How Britain became the first, and so far only, nation to achieve and then abandon independent space flight. And poor little Prospero, the abandoned satellite still pinging us from space.
Spencer Perceval and James Stephen. The surprise bromance between an evangelical Prime Minister a playboy lawyer that helped force through the abolition of slavery in the UK.
And (obviously) the recent tea one on the crazy wartime logistics and politics of tea rationing. Start here:
There's likely a bunch more tbh. I'm a history slut. The threads just tend to happen when I get excited about, or am reminded of, something. I don't really keep track of them.

If any longterm followers can think of history ones I've missed, feel free to add them to the replies.
OH GOD YES SORRY.

Can't believe I forgot about the Emu War! 😄
Oh yes! General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. Hero of Weimar. Forgot about him. well remembered, @Maggie_Perhaps
Oh yes. The Yoghurt Wars. I should really include it for posterity, although that's what was spawning the questions.
I also keep a public playlist of Interesting Things I have found and watched over on Youtube, on my Youtube channel.

If you want a weird mix of history talks showing up on your Youtube homepage rather than lies and fascism, follow it here: youtube.com/playlist?list=…
Think that's a reasonable summary of all my social media history activity.

To be clear, doing this stuff doesn't really make me any money. But I do spend a lot of money on weird old books. So book fund donations are a good way to guarantee future threads😆ko-fi.com/garius
MORE! Guinea Pigs and how the Royal Navy discovered, then forgot, how to cure scurvy. Cheers @lrbudd for the reminder.

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More from @garius

John Bull Profile picture
30 Jul
Okay, as requested, more history of weird stuff with food and logistics.

Let's talk about how Ski Yoghurt utterly dominated the 70s UK yoghurt wars, by understanding how humans work better than humans do.

Oh, and also through strippers.

Read on... /1 classic ski yoghurt pot, shaped like a milk churn.
Let's start at the beginning. In 1963 Ski yoghurt was introduced to the UK.

It was made by Express Dairies in Haywards Heath, but they were smart from the beginning. They promoted it as a healthy, swiss style snack and - the killer USP - it contained REAL FRUIT.
This was the beginning of the UK yoghurt explosion. Yoghurt was now OMG EXCITING as well as (allegedly) healthy.

Express Dairies had utterly nailed the yoghurt zeitgeist, By the end of the 60s, Ski had 40% of the WHOLE UK yoghurt market. 150m pots a year.
Read 41 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
29 Jul
Oh dear.

Think I'm about to be at war with the Soviet Union.
Okay that didn't end well.
Fucking Austro-Hungarians.

Now I know how the real Kaiser felt.
Read 4 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
28 Jul
We used to play Next Gen in the playground at primary school. There was always a quick scrap over who got to be Geordi.

I know there are issues with the portrayal, but it got white kids fighting to play a blind, black character. That's normalisation.
As I've gotten older, and rewatched and fallen in love again with Next Gen multiple times over, I've come to really appreciate Picard for the kind of Captain he is.

But Geordi... Maaaan Geordi always remains my favourite. The one I see the most reflections of myself in.
And I can't help but suspect that Geordi is one of the reasons I ended up with a career in tech, BUT ALSO why, when I was first offered a tech manager role at 23, I decided to step up into it.

Geordi made being a tech MANAGER, not just a developer, cool.
Read 6 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
26 Jul
What Johnson and co. haven't realised is that supermarket supply management is starting to prioritise core goods as the crisis deepens with road haulage.

If you start noticing a lack of booze on supermarket shelves this is why.

And a UK booze shortage will be harder to dismiss.
Essentially, the perishables go first as they're time critical, but then they have to start making hard choices about non-perishables.

At that point, booze goes next. Mostly by triaging down to the big brewery lagers.
So (silly as it may sound) a good sign that your local supermarket is struggling with supply, for whatever reason, is ALWAYS when you start seeing empty shelves for things like Newcastle Brown Ale, bitters (that aren't John Smiths) and other Tier 2 booze.
Read 44 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
25 Jul
No stream today am trapped. Kitty on bed
(also need more sleep. But mostly just trapped)
I did try to move but he just rearranged himself. Kitty having a wash on duvet
Read 5 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
24 Jul
Well this is the plan for Yugoslavia this morning.

Two armies main pressure on their front line across the river, while the armoured and Mountain forces try and hook round through Slovenia.

Cavalry push on the other flank as a possible alternate breakthrough. hoi4 screenshot showing battle plans.
It's kind of working. Managed to break through in the east before the Romanians could take too much ground.

Cavalry are advancing and we're hooking round the Yugoslav front, while 2nd Army has been quickly flipped back to face the Romanians.

If they hold, we'll win this. yugoslavia mostly cut in half. romanians pushing on budapest
BREAKING: There's fighting in the suburbs of Budapest but Yugoslavia has surrendered!

Just the Romanians and the small matter of the French to worry about now.
Read 13 tweets

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