Dan Snow Profile picture
Dec 29, 2021 14 tweets 5 min read Read on X
The post Christmas history road trip begins.

On a stretch of Roman road. Image
Stokesay Castle. A manor house with military pretension more like.

Still. One of the best. ImageImage
Bibury. So distractingly beautiful it makes you forget the Brexit clustastrophe Image
Ludlow Castle. An over mighty fortress for the over mighty Mortimers. Image
A medieval gate at Ludlow. Which manages, gloriously, to incorporate a pub. This pub was established the same year that George Washington first went west to kick the French out of the Ohio Country. Image
This bizarre building is Lodge Park and it's the only surviving 17th Century grandstand. It was built for spectators to watch a giant deer coursing event. It was later renovated into a house. Image
An almost untouched 1940s utility room. Image
A national treasure in Ludlow.

It is possible that the expression "up sticks and move" comes from the era of timber framed houses. Owners could dismantle them, pack up the frames and move on.
But it's also possible that like most things, it was made up in the 19th Century. Image
Can some very clever architectural historian show us all the different centuries of building in this frame?

I think Ive got 15th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th- looking forward to being corrected. Image
I show the kids the probable site of the Brunanburh battlefield, where Athelstan's spear-hordes slew a flock of kings and princes and where I once blew the horn of battle.

New Years sun on the Dee estuary. Close to one of Britain’s earliest identified Stone Age settlements, four millennia before Stonehenge was begun. Image
Chepstow Castle, one of the earliest surviving stone castles in Britain. Begun in 1067 by one of the Conqueror's relatives. Perched on cliffs towering over the River Wye, built on the land claimed by the princes of Glamorgan- this was an act of aggression. Image
Visited in a downpour. This was the driest shot. Kids required major post war reparations.

Also- this is the oldest part of the castle. There are recycled Roman tiles embedded in the structure.
Tintern Abbey. Thread stealer. Image

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More from @thehistoryguy

Sep 5
You will struggle to find a more jaw dropping story of naval skill and gallantry than that of USS Johnston at Leyte Gulf: Image
In one of those strange & terrible chance events USS Johnston, a little destroyer of 2,000 tons, found itself facing the largest battleship ever built, Yamato, 70,000 tons, talismanic flagship of the Japanese fleet. Capable of firing a broadside twice the weight of Bismarck’s.
AND alongside Yamato, THREE other massive battle wagons, SIX heave cruisers and an ensemble cast of other ships.
Read 12 tweets
Aug 28
The tragedy of the Woods Scawen boys.

A story of two Battle of Britain aces, combat, love, heartbreak and death.

One day this will be a movie.
Image
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Patrick Woods Scawen joined the RAF in 1937. He flew a Hurricane over the family home and younger brother Tony was sold. He joined up the following year.
He had poor eyesight so he learned the eye chart off by heart and bluffed his way in.
On Tony’s first flight his big brother sat in the instructor’s seat.
Read 17 tweets
Jul 31
As a child during WW2 Maxwell hid alone in the woods of what is now Ukraine. He was hunted. He survived by foraging. He rescued a baby in the aftermath of a massacre of other Jews.

He’s now the subject of a major new movie. And he’s on the podcast.

🎧: podfollow.com/dan-snows-hist…
Image
His father had been taken away & murdered soon after the German invasion. He had managed to avoid several sweeps of the ghetto but was finally discovered in his hiding place.
His grandfather was then executed in front of him.
After some time with his mother and sister in captivity their turn came. They were told to get onto trucks. In the tumult of that moment his mother, clutching his little sister, simply told him to ‘run.’

Somehow he evaded the guards & fled. His mother & sister were then killed.
Read 10 tweets
Jun 28
110 years ago this morning Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered in Sarajevo, triggering the First World War.

New- subscriber only- podcast now out. Follow minute by minute.

Please click here:

But also here’s a vid from the insta: historyhit.com/subscription/
'I shall never lead a war against Russia. I shall make sacrifices to avoid it. A war between Austria & Russia would end either with the overthrow of the Romanovs or with the overthrow of the Habsburgs – or perhaps the overthrow of both.’
Franz Ferdinand
His murder became the pretext for the war that had been his life’s work to prevent.
Read 9 tweets
Jun 18
Here is a thread of some of the more bizarre and wondrous extracts from Carton de Wiart’s memoir ‘Happy Odyssey’

It is simply unbeatable.

(I have made a podcast about him which you can listen to here: )

Enjoy. 🧵👇 lnkfi.re/oh8dG1
Image
He fails an exam.

Hope for all of us. He was soon to be promoted from Captain to Brigadier General in just three years, becoming the youngest general in the British Army Image
He run up and down the pyramids to lose weight Image
Read 12 tweets
Jan 1
Stefan Zweig's description of Europe after WW1 is familiar:

"An era of frenzied ecstasy & chaotic deception, a unique mixture of impatience & fanaticism. Everything that promised an extreme... experience, every form of narcotic-morphine, cocaine, heroin sold like hot cakes

🧵👇
Schools councils....were set up, with young people keeping a sharp eye on the teachers & making their own changes to the curriculum, because children wanted to learn only what they liked.
There was rebellion, purely for the fun of rebelling against everything once accepted, even against the natural order and the eternal difference between the sexes
Read 8 tweets

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