Tag: history

  • Comparing Elizabeth to Victoria

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Following on from yesterday’s post about Queen Elizabeth’s timeline as she passed Queen Victoria, today we have another selection from the BBC that compares the reigns of the two queens. Unfortunately, while the screenshot below is okay, the overall graphics and illustrations strike me as a bit too simple and not terribly useful in making…

  • Queen Elizabeth II—Britain’s Longest Reigning Monarch

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    As of today, Queen Elizabeth is the longest reigning British monarch. She has surpassed the record of the famous Queen Victoria, Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother at 63 years and seven months. Obviously a lot of things have changed over those 63 years, and in this article the BBC uses a graphic to look at how the world…

  • Living on the Grid

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today’s post relates very much to yesterday’s post. But this one is from the New York Times and uses aerial photography to showcase how the Jefferson grid system works in reality after it was implemented as shown yesterday. Credit for the piece goes to the person behind the Instagram account @the.jefferson.grid

  • Organising Western Lands

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    A few weeks back I looked at my ancestral family’s land grant in Wisconsin. Unlike land on the East Coast that was surveyed and organised by pioneers in different colonies using different sets of rules, after the formation of the United States, surveyed land was organised into townships that had subdivisions. In this blog post…

  • 16th Century Maps

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    While in Philadelphia last weekend, I managed to make it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a little bit. And today’s piece is a nice map—ivory on ebony—from a 16th century Italian writing cabinet. Credit for the piece goes to the workshop of Iacobus Fiamengo.

  • The Spellecy’s Wisconsin Land Grant

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    I have returned from my trip up north to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Unfortunately, from the research side it was not the most successful of trips. I did find some records, but none that answered any of the big questions I had. If anything, I now have far more questions. Most of the information I learned…

  • America’s Long History with Flip-flopping

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today the Supreme Court takes up gay marriage. Again. This is, you know, after they decided two years ago that the federal government has to recognise gay marriages when performed in states where it is legal. Anyway, last week, Bloomberg Business looked at the United States preference for changing its mind through a nice series…

  • British Parliament Timeline

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    For those of you who don’t know, the British Parliament was dissolved today ahead of the 7 May elections. In other words, it is now election time. Last week the Economist published a small interactive piece that allows you to look at the composition of the British Parliament from 1870 through today. While many (some?)…

  • Lee Kuan Yew Built Modern Singapore

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Lee Kuan Yew died this weekend. He is lately responsible for designing and implementing the policies that transformed Singapore from a poor fishing village to a commercial hub. The transformation came at a price of course. Singapore enjoys limited free speech and the country is effectively a one-party state, with the one party now controlled…

  • The UK’s Genetic Clusters

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    I always enjoy the combination of two of my interests: data visualisation and genealogy. So this BBC article that references a Nature article piqued my interest. It looks at the distribution of DNA across the United Kingdom and identifies different cluster areas. The most important finding is that the Celts, i.e. the people of Scotland,…