The Roving Ronin Report

1066 And All That Redux Part 1 The well known, little known Battle of Hastings Re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings “In the Year 1066 occurred the other memorable date in English History … The Battle of Hastings, and was when William I (1066) conquered England … The Norman Conquest was a Good Thing, as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.” -  1066 And All That , William Carruthers Sellar and Robert Julian Yeatman The Battle of Hastings reverently remembered with a pub sign October usually means Halloween for most people — pumpkins, witches, ghosts, and the like. In mid-October, U.S. government workers get the day off for Columbus Day (Oct. 12). What is often overlooked in this month of ghouls and explorers is the anniversary of one of the most important events in the English-speaking world: 1066 and the Battle of Hastings. 1066  — it’s a year that’s beaten mercilessly into the heads of e...

Remembering the ‘Great War’  Nov. 11 marks 90th anniversary of WWI’s end Trench warfare – static and deadly – became the norm for most of World War I “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.” Wilfred Owen – died 1918 Ninety years ago at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the great guns fell silent and Europe experienced a silence it had not known in years. It was the end of the “Great War,” the War to end all Wars. Today, we know that was a hopeful but futile sentiment as the War to end all Wars is now known as World War I. Two bullets and a lost driver set off a powder keg whose explosion engulfed Europe. In the su...