Vintage aircraft above Earth, Carl Sagan surrounded by the cosmos, and a futuristic starship travelling through deep space.

Around the Cosmos

What happens when going around the world is no longer enough? On 28 September 1924, two Douglas World Cruisers returned to Seattle and completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. The US Army Air Service expedition had begun on 6 April and lasted 175 days, covering roughly 27,550 miles. Four aircraft had set out; […]

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Keith Moon playing drums on the lunar surface with the Earth visible in the distance.

Moon on the Moon

On 23 August 1946, Keith Moon was born in Wembley. Twenty years later, on 23 August 1966, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photograph of Earth from the vicinity of the Moon. So, on Keith Moon’s twentieth birthday, a camera at the Moon turned around and looked back at Earth. Moon on the Moon. […]

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Mountaineers emerging from the Sphinx Lift at Jungfraujoch Top of Europe, symbolising the link between the first ascent of the Jungfrau and Elisha Graves Otis's contribution to safe vertical travel.

Going Up!

On 3 August 1811, two seemingly unrelated events took place. In the Swiss Alps, the Jungfrau was climbed for the first time by the Meyer brothers and two experienced mountain guides. Reaching one of Europe’s great Alpine summits required determination, skill and endurance. At the time, such an ascent was the preserve of only the […]

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Arabia

🥗 Peter O’Toole, Oil and the Fires of History: The 2 August Link Salad 🎬 The Star of the Day: Peter O’Toole Some days in Linkology have one obvious starting point. For 2 August, that link is undoubtedly Peter O’Toole. Born on 2 August 1932, O’Toole became one of cinema’s greatest actors, but one role […]

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Koachella

Happy birthday to Fatboy Slim! Few artists are as closely associated with Britain’s seaside culture as Norman Cook. His landmark 1998 album You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby became one of the defining electronic music albums of its era, before he transformed Brighton Beach into the venue for the legendary Big Beach Boutique in 2002. […]

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