Today we are starting a new feature, a daily diary entry from the journal of 16 year old Richard Peele Hobson aboard the ship Philanthropist, as it sailed from Liverpool with a cargo of coal for Rio de Janeiro, and…
At 3:45 p.m. on this very day, 5 October, in 1785, an Italian by the name of Vincenzo Lunardi lifted off in his “aerostatic machine” (read: hot air balloon) from the garden of George Heriot’s School for what would be…
On 27 July 1822 – 190 years to the day before this post is written – Thomas Moody set off from Paris to begin a tour which would allow him to take a “bird’s eye view” of the “romantic and beautiful scenery in…