...of Ordnance – the Ministry of Defence of Georgian Britain – to survey and map the Channel coast of Southern England in preparation for invasion. Even though cutting-edge digital products...
Portrait Photograph, President John F. Kennedy. White House | US National Archives Fifty years ago today, the 35thPresident of the United States of America was shot dead as his...
...best for the building eventually led to the Downing Street of today. This first blog provides the historical background to the rebuilding, with more to come in future blog entries...
...seems impossible to kill it. 2) The most important bit rarely gets quoted... Usually, when the recording is played today, it gets cut off after the words ‘never surrender’, as...
...the NATO alliance and by the end of 1965 France had pulled out of SEATO (South East Asian Treaty Organisation) and refused to participate in future NATO military manoeuvres. He...
...in 1912 on the tragic Terra Nova expedition – a voyage whose tragic end was compounded by the fact Scott was beaten to the South Pole by the technically superior...
...the real head of the executive, an active political force concerned with the day-to-day issues of government to a monarch with a veto – the right to dismiss the Prime...
...then I'll begin. Could a government document ever have been a potential contender for the ‘Jackanory’1 treatment? Let me explain. Today, 3 January, as part of the transition to a...
...the Messenger service would last until the 20th century. Today The Corps of Queen's Messengers still exists today, as not everything can be sent by electronic or registered mail. In...
![Extract of the draft note from 2 January 1917 on 10 Downing Street headed paper which reads 'To: The Private Secretary, the Prime Minister has decided, with a view to keeping himself in close touch with the several departments, to establish a ['Secretariat' is crossed out and replaced by 'Department'] in connection with Office of the First Lord of the Treasury. The following gentlemen have been appointed to act as secretaries to the ['First Lord of the Treasury' is crossed out and replaced by 'new Department']](https://history.blog.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/01/edited-e1483652073427.jpg)
...A hundred years ago today, on 5 January 1917, in the midst of the Great War, an important note was circulated around Whitehall departments. J. T. Davis, private secretary to...