Guy Fawkes Night
The 5th November is known as Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night, as it commemorates a treasonous event that took place on […]
Read MoreAuthor: Purple Brolly
My aim is to give a flavour of these precious islands we call 'the UK'. All research is based on a minimum of two publicly available sources, usually more.
Jehovah’s Witnesses
There are 135,000 Jehovah’s Witneses in the UK and most people will have encountered at least two of them, as they are […]
Read More
Brian Blessed
A force of nature, Yorkshireman Brian Blessed (1936-) is an actor on stage and screen, a voiceover artist and narrator, and, if […]
Read More
Citizens Advice
Citizens Advice is a national charity, mainly funded by taxpayers, which gives advice on managing debt; applying for benefits; and housing, law, […]
Read More
Snowdonia
Snowdonia is the name given to a group of mountains in north-west Wales, the tallest of which is the 3,560ft high Mount […]
Read More
‘The Mousetrap’
‘The Mousetrap’, written by Agatha Christie (1890-1976) from Devon, is the world’s longest-running play. It opened in the West End of London […]
Read More
Penicillin
The 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine recognised three men whose efforts brought about the production of the world’s first antibiotic, […]
Read MoreThe 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine recognised three men whose efforts brought about the production of the world’s first antibiotic, namely penicillin. This was first used during World War 2 and it saved the lives of thousands of wounded soldiers by attacking the cell structure of bacteria.
The first of the three men was Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), who was born in Ayrshire. In his research work at St Mary’s Hospital in London, he had accidentally left some petri dishes out during a short absence in 1928 and returned to find a mould around which there were no bacteria.
Although he continued to work on his discovery and published a paper about it, there was not much interest until émigrés Sir Howard Walter Florey (1898-1968) and Sir Ernst Boris Chain (1906-79), working together at Oxford University, found that it could be used to combat disease. This was in the early 1940s and since then, many other antibiotics have been developed to meet high demand. However, bacteria can adapt and there are now public information campaigns warning of over-use.
(Top image of portrait of Sir Alexander Fleming: jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net / Public domain)
St. Valentine’s Day
St. Valentine’s Day is the 14th February and it has evolved in recent times from being a day to celebrate romantic love, […]
Read More
Alan Turing
Publicly recognised as a war hero long after his death, Alan Mathison Turing was born in London in 1912 and by age […]
Read More
Sir Nick Faldo
Sir Nick (Nicholas Alexander) Faldo was born in 1957 in Hertfordshire and is the most successful British golfer to date. He won […]
Read More
Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Unfortunately, Henry had desperately wanted […]
Read More
The London Eye
The London Eye has become one of the must-see tourist attractions in the English capital. It was built for the new millenium […]
Read MoreThe London Eye has become one of the must-see tourist attractions in the English capital. It was built for the new millenium and opened to the public on 9th March 2000 after a slight technical hitch. It is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, standing at 443 feet, and it sits on the banks of the River Thames in Lambeth.
Image: pixabay.com
The wheel has 32 pods or capsules and it rotates at a speed of just over 1/2 mph, giving passengers a fantastic aerial view over London with plenty of time for taking photos. Tickets are best bought in advance and the Eye is open all year round except for a few weeks in January. It operates from 10am or 11am until 6pm or 8.30pm in summer.
(Top image: pixabay.com)