Lots new knowledge

OK it's several weeks since my last post, partly due to being on holiday in Crete. I'm not going to be able to cover all of what I've learnt in a single post, but they include the following:

• Visit to Knossos, site of the largest city of the Minoan civilisation, 4000+ years ago, home to the fabled labyrinth. Learnt an overview of Minoan civilisation.


• More modern history of Crete, when it was occupied by Venetions and later the Turks.


• Cretan resistance to German occupation during WWII (having read an excellent first person account, 'The Cretan Runner' by George Psychoundakis while on holiday).


• Spinalonga - the island off Crete, Venetian fortress turned leper colony.


• Various stuff on the Tudors (from my course).


• Historical techniques from my course.


• Local history of Lancaster.


• Greek alphabet.

There's more but that's what sticks out. Hope to cover some of this soon. Firstly a couple of other items.

How to convert farenheit to celsius

While on holiday, I kept seeing temperature in farenheit. Since I only work in celsius I never know what it means. I vaguely remembered that there was an easy way to convert between the two, so decided to look it up. Apparently the formula is:

C=(F-32) x 5/9

Crikey and I was hoping for something I could easily do in my head! To convert celsius to farenheit by the way, you do: F=(9/5 x C) + 32. As a useful check, zero degrees celsius is 32 degrees farenheit, and human body temperature is 37 degrees celsius or 98.6 degrees farenheit.

Alistair Cooke and his 'Letters from America'

I've recently been reading Alistair Cooke's landmark history book, 'America'. I've been vaguely aware that he was most famous for his 'Letter from America' broadcast, every week for 58 years between 1946 and 2004. Being relatively young (though admittedly 24 when the last broadcast happened), I had never heard or read any of the 2800+ broadcasts (15 minutes each). Having a fascination with America and its history myself, this is something I thought I should really look at. There's 3 volumes of the 'best of' on CD, a total of a paltry 36 episodes. There's several extracts and highlights on the bbc's official website. Also on the website, you can listen to the last 5 years of broadcasts, 1999-2004. I've now listened to the very first broadcast, originally broadcast in 1946, but rebroadcast in 1996. What struck me is that Mr Cooke's voice is very easy and enjoyable to listen to. The first broadcast was about GI brides going to America, rationing and black market profiteering of butter etc. I'm really looking forward to listening to more soon.