Showing results by author "Liam Dale" in All Categories

“A dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road, a long, agonized wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night.” With howling dogs, a shimmering moon and a chill wind through a darkened landscape, these words could only come from one novel; the great horror classic, Dracula, penned by the Irish born writer Bram Stoker...

If I asked you how many Robin Hoods you could name, what would the list be like? I’m sure you’d reel off a whole host of famous actors, like Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks, Kevin Costner, Michael Praed, Sean Connery, and John Cleese, to name but six. All of these men have played the role of Robin Hood in various television and movie adaptations of the famous story. But that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about Robin Hood himself; the ever popular and ever noble outlaw hero who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, with his trusty bow and arrow as his weapon of choice. The ...

The Tide Begins to Turn October – December 1942 After so many years of German supremacy, as 1942 drew to a close, the Allies were really beginning to make headway. The British made a crucial breakthrough in North Africa, and the Americans pushed the Japanese out of Burma and New Guinea, while in Russia the Germans found themselves surrounded, as the winter snow set in over Stalingrad.

Russian Roulette July – September 1941 If Hitler had expected a decisive victory in Russia, at speed, he was thwarted at every turn and while the Luftwaffe bombed Moscow and the Siege of Leningrad began, the Soviet Red Army refused to capitulate as they watched and waited for the winter snows. Trouble was also brewing in the Pacific as America took diplomatic action against the Japanese.

Battle Lines Drawn January – March 1940 As the New Year dawned and the people of Britain faced the introduction of rationing, all eyes turned northwards to Scandinavia, where Adolf Hitler was preparing for full-scale invasion. U-Boat attacks increased and at Scapa Flow a German Air Raid claimed the first British casualties.

Battle of Midway and Beyond April – June 1942 It was time for the American Navy to get back on course after Pearl Harbour, and in the four-day Battle for the Coral Sea, they claimed victory over the Japanese, before defeating them again in the decisive Battle of Midway. Elsewhere the Luftwaffe went back to targeting more British cities in the Baedeker Raids.

Fighting Further Afield October – December 1940 Worldwide, the conflict continued to escalate as Japan made their presence felt as signatories of the Tripartite Pact, giving Hitler’s Axis of Evil more power than ever. Britain stood alone as the nightly bombing raids of the Blitz devastated major cities, while overseas British troops joined the Allied campaign for supremacy in North Africa.

El Alamein to Stalingrad July – September 1942 Hitler’s “Desert Fox”, Rommel pushed forward at El Alamein, but with the arrival of the maverick British General, Bernard Montgomery, to take charge of the Eighth Army in North Africa, the wind of change was about to blow. Meanwhile on the Russian Front Hitler’s troops advanced their Stalingrad campaign, with the Fuhrer boasting that this key city would soon be his.

Because powerful things, always come in threes. You can never settle on an argument when there are two - there’s something magical about the Power of Three! We three amigos started debating at uni together and when we left we took the debate with us. Now we’re inviting you to have a listen and join in! Every episode, one of us take on a topic that we feel is a important part of our lives.

Do you want to learn more about Charlie Chaplin, but don’t have time to listen to huge, long biographies? Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his life. Charlie Chaplin’s legacy lives on forever in the films that have been left behind, bringing the gift of laughter to viewers of every generation, past, present, and future.

When it comes to ancient history, there are some names that will never be forgotten, and Alexander the Great is, without doubt, a perfect example of this timeless phenomenon. But beyond his rather illustrious title, few people could tell you very much more about Alexander, except, perhaps, that he was rather partial to conquering, had an amazing horse, and died very young.

Theatre of War: The Pacific Campaign is devoted to the history of the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Starting with the tensions in the Pacific that led to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor through the epic battle of Midway and the atomic bombing of Japan.

Step back in time to the days that forged our modern age, when every man, woman and child in the free world were prepared to sacrifice all for the cause, and discover for yourself Why Hitler Lost the War.

When Adolf Hitler stormed to power in Germany during the 1930's, he experienced little opposition for his plans to rebuild his adopted homeland. The Hitler Conspiracies follows the remarkable plot that very nearly ended Hitler's reign of terror, proving beyond doubt that within his own ranks there were those prepared to risk their lives for that sake of humanity.

MARY SHELLEY - The Mother of Frankenstein. "It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its body. His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! --Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of ...

The novel is set in the late 1970s, during the TROUBLES in Northern Ireland, and the story was told to the author by the only surviving member of the SAS team involved. The names and places have been changed, and the entire operation has always been denied by the British Government. O'Malley is a Special Forces trained Commando with a growing mental health problem, who is pushed over the edge by the death of his son at the hands of the British army. He turns rogue and begins shooting British soldiers. A specialist SAS assassination squad are assigned to eliminate him but begin to take ...

Spotty - is a 14-year-old boy genius, gifted with the power of total recall. Spotty forgets nothing and remembers every word of every book that he has read. He is also a daydreamer and likes nothing better than to imagine himself as the hero of those books - a superhero. One day, while sitting in the classroom listening to the endless drone of Mrs Malchite the schoolteacher, his daydream takes him to the Serengeti Plain in Africa where he is attacked by a lion. He returns to classroom reality to find that underneath his school uniform , his arm bares the deep scratch marks inflicted. This ...

Onwards, ever Onwards October – December 1944 Despite the fact that Hitler’s position was worsening by the day, the Nazis were still capable of inflicting terrible damage, and when the Germans attempted a breakthrough in the Ardennes region of France, the ensuing Battle of the Bulge resulted in terrible US casualties. Even so, the Germans failed to achieve their objectives, and as the year came to an end, so did Hitler’s last hopes of victory.

Churchill’s Finest Hour April – June 1945 It fell to the Russians to enter Berlin first, and as Hitler took his own life in his bunker, the war in Europe finally came to an end. Winston Churchill led the people of Britain in the VE Day celebrations, but the fighting continued in the Pacific. Sadly, President Roosevelt died in April, just weeks before VE Day, and the task of finishing the task in hand passed to the new American President, Harry S Truman.

The Race for Berlin January – March 1944 While the Russians moved towards Germany from the East, and the Western allies attacked from the opposite direction, the Japanese continued their battle in the Pacific, fighting American Marines to the death on the island of Iwo Jima. As the endgame came into sight, there were desperate measures taken by both sides, and the casualties kept on rising.