Portal:Scotland/Selected article/2016
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Weeks in 2016
[edit]- Week 1
Edgar or Étgar mac Maíl Choluim (Modern Gaelic: Eagar mac Mhaoil Chaluim), nicknamed Probus, "the Valiant" (c. 1074–8 January 1107), was king of Alba from 1097 to 1107. He was the son of Malcolm III (Máel Coluim mac Donnchada) and Margaret of Wessex (later Saint Margaret). Edgar claimed the kingship in early 1095, following the murder of his half-brother Duncan II (Donnchad mac Maíl Coluim) in late 1094 by Máel Petair of Mearns, a supporter of Edgar's uncle Donald III (Domnall Bán mac Donnchada). His older brother Edmund sided with Donald, presumably in return for an appanage and acknowledgement as the heir of the ageing and son-less Donald. Edgar received limited support from William II (William Rufus) as Duncan had before him; however, the English king was occupied with a revolt led by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, who appears to have had the support of Donald and Edmund. Rufus campaigned in northern England for much of 1095, and during this time Edgar gained control only of Lothian. A charter issued at Durham at this time names him "... son of Máel Coluim King of Scots ... possessing the whole land of Lothian and the kingship of the Scots by the gift of my lord William, king of the English, and by paternal heritage."
Edgar's claims had the support of his brothers Alexander and David — Ethelred was Abbot of Dunkeld, and Edmund was divided from his siblings by his support of Donald — and his uncle Edgar Ætheling as these witnessed the charter at Durham. William Rufus spent 1096 in Normandy which he bought from his brother Robert Curthose, and it was not until 1097 that Edgar received the further support which led to the defeat of Donald and Edmund in a hard-fought campaign led by Edgar Ætheling. Although Geoffrey Gaimar claimed that Edgar owed feudal service to William Rufus, it is clear from Rufus's agreement to pay Edgar 40 or 60 shillings a day maintenance when in attendance at the English court that this was less than accurate. In any event, he did attend the court on occasion. On 29 May 1099, for example, Edgar served as sword-bearer at the great feast to inaugurate Westminster Hall. After William Rufus's death, however, Edgar ceased to appear at the English court. He was not present at the coronation of Henry I.
- Week 2
The Kingdom of the Isles comprised the Hebrides, the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD. The islands were known to the Norse as the Suðreyjar, or "Southern Isles" as distinct from the Norðreyjar or Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland. The historical record is not complete and the Kingdom was not a continuous event throughout the entire period. The islands concerned are sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles during this period, although only some of the later rulers claimed that title. At times the rulers were independent of external control although for much of the period they had overlords in Norway, Ireland, England, Scotland or Orkney. At times there also appear to have been competing claims for all or parts of the territory. The islands involved have a total land area of over 8,300 square kilometres (3,205 sq mi) and extend for more than 500 kilometres (310 mi) from north to south.
Viking influence in the area commenced in the late 8th century, and whilst there is no doubt that the Uí Ímair dynasty played a prominent role in this early period, the records for the dates and details of the rulers are speculative until the late 10th century. Hostility between the Kings of the Isles and the rulers of Ireland, and intervention by the crown of Norway (either directly or through their vassal the Earl of Orkney) were recurring themes.
- Week 3
RRS Discovery was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain. Designed for Antarctic research, she was launched as a Royal Research Ship (RRS) in 1901. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, successful journey to the Antarctic, known as the Discovery Expedition. She is now the centrepiece of visitor attraction in her home, Dundee. On 16 March 1900, in the context of significant donations to the approaching expedition by patrons Llewellyn W. Longstaff and the British Government, construction on the Discovery began in Dundee, Scotland, by the Dundee Shipbuilders Company. She was launched into the Firth of Tay on 21 March 1901 by Lady Markham, the wife of Sir Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical Society.
Discovery had coal-fired auxiliary steam engines, but had to rely primarily on sail because the coal bunkers did not have sufficient capacity to take the ship on long voyages. She was rigged as a barque. According to Shackleton, the ship was a bad sailer, and carried too much sail aft and not enough forward; while Scott worried that the design of the ship's hull was unsuitable for work in pack ice. The ship had a massively built wooden hull, made from five different types of wood to better withstand the compression of the icepack. The keel was made from the trunk of a single eucalyptus tree. The propeller and rudder could be hoisted out of the way to prevent ice damage and Iron-shod bows were severely raked so that when ramming the ice they would ride up over the margin and crush the ice with deadweight. The Discovery rolled badly in the open sea where the flat shallow hull, built with no protuberances to work well in ice, provided minimal stability in heavy seas.
- Week 4
John Muir (21 April 1838 – 24 December 1914 was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Born in Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland, his letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States. One of the most well-known hiking trails in the U.S., the 211-mile (340 km) John Muir Trail, was named in his honour. Other places named in his honor are Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier and the John Muir Way in Scotland, a 130 mile long distance route.
In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. He petitioned the U.S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing both Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Because of the spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings, he was able to inspire readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas. He is today referred to as the "Father of the National Parks," and the National Park Service produced a short documentary on his life
- Week 5
The Declaration of Arbroath is a declaration of Scottish independence, made in 1320. It is in the form of a letter in Latin submitted to Pope John XXII, dated 6 April 1320, intended to confirm Scotland's status as an independent, sovereign state and defending Scotland's right to use military action when unjustly attacked. Generally believed to have been written in the Arbroath Abbey by Bernard of Kilwinning, then Chancellor of Scotland and Abbot of Arbroath, and sealed by fifty-one magnates and nobles, the letter is the sole survivor of three created at the time. The others were a letter from the King of Scots, Robert I, and a letter from four Scottish bishops which all presumably made similar points.
The Declaration was part of a broader diplomatic campaign which sought to assert Scotland's position as an independent kingdom, rather than being a feudal land controlled by England's Norman kings, as well as lift the excommunication of Robert the Bruce. The Pope had recognised Edward I of England's claim to overlordship of Scotland in 1305 and Bruce was excommunicated by the Pope for murdering John Comyn before the altar in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries in 1306. The Declaration made a number of rhetorical points: that Scotland had always been independent, indeed for longer than England; that Edward I of England had unjustly attacked Scotland and perpetrated atrocities; that Robert the Bruce had delivered the Scottish nation from this peril; and, most controversially, that the independence of Scotland was the prerogative of the Scottish people, rather than the King of Scots.
- Week 6
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Dundee (/dʌnˈdiː/ ; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Dè [ˈt̪uːn tʲeː]), officially the City of Dundee, is Scotland's fourth largest city and the 51st most populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. At the 2011 census, Dundee had a population density of 8,541.8/sq mi (3,298.0/km2), the second highest of any Scottish city. The mid-year population estimate for 2014 is 148,260. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. The city developed into a burgh in medieval times, and expanded rapidly in the 19th century largely due to the jute industry. This, along with its other major industries gave Dundee its epithet as city of "jute, jam and journalism". Dundee's recorded population reached a peak of 182,204 at the 1971 census.
Today, Dundee is promoted as 'One City, Many Discoveries' in honour of Dundee's history of scientific activities and of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in Dundee and is now berthed in the city harbour. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdom's digital-entertainment industry. Dundee has two universities—the University of Dundee and the Abertay University. In 2014 Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UK's first UNESCO City of Design for its diverse contributions to fields including medical research, comics and video games.
- Week 7
The Encyclopædia Britannica (Latin for "British Encyclopaedia") is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., a privately held company. Articles are aimed at educated adults, and written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert contributors. It is regarded as the most scholarly of encyclopaedias. The Britannica is the oldest English-language encyclopaedia still in print. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and grew in popularity and size, its third edition (1797) and supplement (1801) reaching 20 volumes together. Its rising stature helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th edition (1875–1889) and the 11th edition (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Beginning with the 11th edition, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its North American market. In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted and every article updated on a schedule.
The current 15th edition has a unique three-part structure: a 12-volume Micropædia of short articles (generally fewer than 750 words), a 17-volume Macropædia of long articles (two to 310 pages) and a single Propædia volume to give a hierarchical outline of knowledge. The Micropædia is meant for quick fact-checking and as a guide to the Macropædia; readers are advised to study the Propædia outline to understand a subject's context and to find more detailed articles. The size of the Britannica has remained roughly constant over 70 years, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. Although publication has been based in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has maintained British spelling.
- Week 8
David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?". Livingstone was born on 19 March 1813 in the mill town of Blantyre, beside the bridge crossing into Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Richmond, into a Protestant family believed to be descended from the highland Livingstones, a clan that had been previously known as the Clan MacLea. He was employed from the age of ten in the cotton mill of H. Monteith. The mill offered their workers schooling of which David took advantage.
Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone had a mythic status, which operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial empire. His fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the River Nile that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent. At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa".
- Week 9
Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder.
Telford was born in Glendinning, in the parish of Westerkirk, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. His father, a shepherd, died soon after Thomas was born. Thomas was raised in poverty by his mother. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and some of his earliest work can still be seen on the bridge across the River Esk in Langholm in the Scottish borders. He worked for a time in Edinburgh and in 1782 he moved to London where (after meeting architects Robert Adam and Sir William Chambers) he was involved in building additions to Somerset House there. Two years later he found work at Portsmouth dockyard and — although still largely self-taught — was extending his talents to the specification, design and management of building projects.
In 1787, through his wealthy patron William Pulteney, he became Surveyor of Public Works in Shropshire. Civil engineering was a discipline still in its infancy, so Telford was set on establishing himself as an architect. His projects included renovation of Shrewsbury Castle, the town's prison (during the planning of which he met leading prison reformer John Howard), the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Bridgnorth and another church in Madeley.
- Week 10
The Lewis Chessmen (or Uig Chessmen, named after their find-site) are a group of 78 chess pieces from the 12th century most of which are carved in walrus ivory, discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. They may constitute some of the few complete, surviving medieval chess sets, although it is not clear if a set as originally made can be assembled from the pieces. When found, the hoard contained 93 artifacts: 78 chess pieces, 14 tablemen and one belt buckle. Today, 82 pieces are owned and usually exhibited by the British Museum in London, and the remaining 11 are at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The chessmen were probably made in Norway, perhaps by craftsmen in Trondheim (where similar pieces have been found), in the 12th century, although scholars have suggested other sources in the Scandinavian world. During that period the Outer Hebrides, along with other major groups of Scottish islands, were ruled by Norway. Some historians believe that the Lewis chessmen were hidden (or lost) after some mishap occurred during their transportation from Norway to wealthy Norse settlements on the east coast of Ireland.
- Week 11
Sir Alexander Fleming FRS FRSE FRCS (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist. His best-known discoveries are the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic substance benzylpenicillin (Penicillin G) from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. He wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy.
In 1999, Time Magazine named Fleming one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century for his discovery of penicillin, and stated; "It was a discovery that would change the course of history. The active ingredient in that mould, which Fleming named penicillin, turned out to be an infection-fighting agent of enormous potency. When it was finally recognized for what it was—the most efficacious life-saving drug in the world—penicillin would alter forever the treatment of bacterial infections. By the middle of the century, Fleming's discovery had spawned a huge pharmaceutical industry, churning out synthetic penicillins that would conquer some of mankind's most ancient scourges, including syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis".
- Week 12
The Scottish Reformation was Scotland's formal break with the papacy in 1560, and the events surrounding this. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation; and in Scotland's case culminated ecclesiastically in the re-establishment of the church along Reformed lines, and politically in the triumph of English influence over that of France.
The Reformation Parliament of 1560, which repudiated the pope's authority, forbade the celebration of the mass and approved a Protestant Confession of Faith, was made possible by a revolution against French hegemony under the regime of the regent Mary of Guise, who had governed Scotland in the name of her absent daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, who was also Queen of France.
The Scottish Reformation decisively shaped the Church of Scotland and, through it, all other Presbyterian churches worldwide. From the 15th century, Renaissance humanism had already encouraged critical theological reflection and calls for ecclesiastical renewal in Scotland. From 1517, Martin Luther's doctrinal ideas were influencing Scots. As early as 1525, Parliament thought it necessary to forbid the importation of Lutheran books, and to suppress "his heresies or opinions" throughout the realm.
- Week 13
The Falkirk Wheel, named after the nearby town of Falkirk in central Scotland, is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The difference in the levels of the two canals at the wheel is 24 metres, roughly equivalent to the height of an eight storey building. The structure is located near the Rough Castle Fort and the closest village is Tamfourhill. On 24 May 2002, Queen Elizabeth opened the Falkirk Wheel as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations.
The wheel, which has an overall diameter of 35 metres, consists of two opposing arms which extend 15 metres beyond the central axle, and which take the shape of a Celtic-inspired, double-headed axe. Two sets of these axe-shaped arms are attached about 25 metres apart to a 3.5 metre diameter axle. Two diametrically opposed water-filled caissons, each with a capacity of 80,000 gallons (302 tons), are fitted between the ends of the arms. According to Archimedes' principle, floating objects displace their own weight in water. This keeps the wheel balanced and so, despite its enormous mass, it rotates through 180° in five and a half minutes whilst using very little power.
- Week 14
Sir Walter Scott (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832) was a prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet popular throughout Europe during his time.
In some ways Scott was the first author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary readers all over Europe, Australia, and North America. His novels and poetry are still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley and The Heart of Midlothian.
Born in College Wynd in the Old Town of Edinburgh in 1771, the son of a solicitor, the young Walter Scott survived a childhood bout of polio in 1773 that would leave him lame in his right leg for the rest of his life. To restore his health he was sent in that year to live in the rural Borders region at his grandparents' farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower, the earlier family home. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends which characterized much of his work.
At the age of 25 he began dabbling in writing, translating works from German, his first publication being rhymed versions of ballads by Bürger in 1796. He then published a three-volume set of collected Scottish ballads, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. This was the first sign of his interest in Scottish history from a literary standpoint.
- Week 15
The Willow Tearooms are tearooms at 217 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Scotland, designed by internationally renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which opened for business in October 1903. They quickly gained enormous popularity, and are the most famous of the many Glasgow tearooms that opened in the late 19th and early 20th century. Early in his career, in 1896, Mackintosh met Catherine Cranston (widely known as Kate Cranston or simply Miss Cranston), an entrepreneurial local business woman who was the daughter of a Glasgow tea merchant and a strong believer in temperance.
The temperance movement was becoming increasingly popular in Glasgow at the turn of the century and Miss Cranston had conceived the idea of a series of "art tearooms", venues where people could meet to relax and enjoy non-alcoholic refreshments in a variety of different "rooms" within the same building. This proved to be the start of a long working relationship between Miss Cranston and Mackintosh. Between 1896 and 1917 he designed and re-styled interiors in all four of her Glasgow tearooms, often in collaboration with his wife Margaret MacDonald.
- Week 16
Jackie Stewart, OBE (born 11 June, 1939 in Milton, West Dunbartonshire), also nicknamed The Flying Scot, is a Scottish former racing driver and team owner. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am. He is well-known in the United States as a color commentator of racing television broadcasts, and as a spokesman for Ford, where his Scottish accent made him a distinctive presence. Between 1997 and 1999, in partnership with his son, Paul, he was team principal of the Stewart Grand Prix Formula One racing team. In 2009 he was ranked fifth of the fifty greatest Formula One drivers of all time by journalist Kevin Eason who wrote: "He has not only emerged as a great driver, but one of the greatest figures of motor racing."
Jackie's family were Austin, later Jaguar car dealers and had built up a successful business, Dumbuck Garage, in Milton. His father had been an amateur motorcycle racer, and his brother Jimmy was a racing driver with a growing local reputation who drove for Ecurie Ecosse and competed in the 1953 British Grand Prix, until he went off at Copse Corner in the wet.
- Week 17
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Originally founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland — Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore — each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species, (34,422 accessions) whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens. The Edinburgh site is the main garden.
The Edinburgh botanic garden was founded in 1670 at St. Anne's Yard, near Holyrood Palace, by Dr. Robert Sibbald and Dr. Andrew Balfour. It is the second oldest botanic garden in Britain after Oxford's. The plant collection used as the basis of the garden was the private collection of Sir Patrick Murray, 2nd Lord Elibank, moved from his home at Livingston Peel in 1672 following his death in September 1671. The original site proved too small, and in 1676 grounds belonging to Trinity Hospital were leased by Balfour from the City Council: this second garden was sited just to the east of the Nor Loch, down from the High Street. In 1763, the garden's collections were moved away from the city's pollution to a larger "Physick Garden" on the west side of Leith Walk, as shown in Ainslie's 1804 map. In the early 1820s under the direction of the botanist Daniel Ellis and several others, the garden moved west to its present location as the "New Botanic Garden" adjacent to Inverleith Row. The Temperate Palm House, which remains the tallest in Britain to the present day, was built in 1858.
- Week 18
The RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line (then Cunard-White Star when the vessel entered service). Built by John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland, she was designed to be the first of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service from Southampton to Cherbourg to New York, in answer to the mainland European superliners of the late 1920s and early 1930s. With Germany launching their Bremen and Europa into service, White Star Line began construction on their 60,000 ton Oceanic in 1928, while Cunard planned a 75,000 ton unnamed ship of their own. Construction of the Queen Mary, then known only as "Hull Number 534", began in December 1930 on the River Clyde by the John Brown & Company Shipbuilding and Engineering shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland.
After their release from World War II troop transport duties, Queen Mary and her running mate RMS Queen Elizabeth commenced this two-ship service and continued it for two decades until Queen Mary's retirement in 1967. The ship is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is permanently berthed in Long Beach, California serving as a museum ship and hotel. Queen Mary celebrated the 70th anniversary of her launch in both Clydebank and Long Beach during 2004, and the 70th anniversary of her maiden voyage in 2006.
- Week 19
James Clerk Maxwell FRS FRSE (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish scientist in the field of mathematical physics. His most notable achievement was to formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics" after the first one realised by Isaac Newton.
With the publication of A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field in 1865, Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves moving at the speed of light. Maxwell proposed that light is an undulation in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves.
His discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for such fields as special relativity and quantum mechanics. Many physicists regard Maxwell as the 19th-century scientist having the greatest influence on 20th-century physics. His contributions to the science are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. In the millennium poll—a survey of the 100 most prominent physicists—Maxwell was voted the third greatest physicist of all time, behind only Newton and Einstein.. On the centenary of Maxwell's birthday, Einstein described Maxwell's work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton".
- Week 20
The Treaty of Union is the name given to the agreement that led to the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the political union of the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland, which took effect on 1 May 1707. The details of the Treaty were agreed on 22 July 1706, and separate Acts of Union were then passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland to ratify the Treaty and put it into effect.
The idea of uniting the two sovereign states had been widely discussed since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne from his double first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I. Fear of Scottish cooperation with France or in a French invasion was a constant concern in England. Three previous attempts to unite the two countries by Acts of Parliament, in 1606, 1667, and 1689 were unsuccessful, although the political and economic circumstances at the start of the 18th century were such that the Scottish political establishment, many of whom had lost large sums of money in the ill-fated Darién scheme which had failed due to administrative incompetence and military opposition from Spain, supported the idea, despite its being deeply unpopular among the Scottish population at large. The English had foreseen the political problems and refused to provide financial support, which meant that Scotland was forced to fund the venture alone.
- Week 21
Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century. Unusually for a first generation modernist, he was a communist; unusually for a communist, however, he was a committed Scottish nationalist. He wrote both in English and in literary Scots (often referred to as Lallans). MacDiarmid was born in Langholm. After leaving school in 1910, he worked as a journalist for five years. He then served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War. After the war, he married and returned to journalism. His first book, Annals of the Five Senses (1923) was a mixture of prose and poetry in English, but he then turned to Scots for a series of books, culminating in what is probably his best known work, the book-length A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. This poem is widely regarded as one of the most important long poems in 20th-century Scottish literature. After that, he published several books containing poems in both English and Scots.
In 1928, MacDiarmid helped found the National Party of Scotland. He was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. During the 1930s, he was expelled from the former for being a communist and from the latter for being a nationalist. From 1931, whilst he was in London, until 1943, after he had left the Shetland island of Whalsay for conscripted war work in Glasgow, MacDiarmid was watched by the British Intelligence Services. In 1949, George Orwell compiled a list of suspected communist sympathisers for British intelligence. He included MacDiarmid in this list. In 1956, MacDiarmid rejoined the Communist Party.
- Week 22
The Mackintosh or Macintosh (abbreviated as mac or mack) is a form of waterproof raincoat, first sold in 1824, made out of rubberised fabric. The Mackintosh is named after its Scottish inventor Charles Macintosh, though many writers add a letter k (this variant spelling "Mackintosh" is now standard. Although the Mackintosh style of coat has become generic, a genuine Mackintosh coat should be made from rubberised or rubber laminated material.
Charles Macintosh patented his invention for waterproof cloth in 1823 and the first Mackintosh coats were made in the family's textile factory, Charles Macintosh and Co. of Glasgow. But in 1830 the company merged with the clothing company of Thomas Hancock in Manchester. Hancock had also been experimenting with rubber coated fabrics since 1819. Production of rubberised coats soon spread all over the UK. Every kind of coat was produced with rubberized material including riding coats and coats supplied to the British Army, British Railways and UK police forces. Early coats had problems with smell, stiffness, and a tendency to melt in hot weather, but Hancock further improved their waterproof fabrics, patenting a method for vulcanising rubber in 1843 which solved many of the problems. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the company continued to make waterproof clothing. In 1925 the company was taken over by Dunlop Rubber.
- Week 23
Sir James Young Simpson, 1st Baronet (7 June 1811 – 6 May 1870) was a Scottish obstetrician and an important figure in the history of medicine. Simpson discovered the anaesthetic properties of chloroform and successfully introduced it for general medical use. James Simpson was born in Bathgate, West Lothian, the youngest of seven children. James received his initial education at the local school, but because of his obvious abilities his father and brothers (his mother died when he was 9) together paid for a college education and he entered the University of Edinburgh when he was 14 years old. Simpson completed his final examination at the age of 18 but, as he was so young, had to wait two years before he got his license to practice medicine. He became a Licentiate in 1830 before graduating in 1832 with an MD. He was appointed Professor of Midwifery (which would now be called Obstetrics) at the University of Edinburgh and physician to Queen Victoria.
At the age of 28 he was appointed to the Chair of Medicine and Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh. He improved the design of obstetric forceps that to this day are known in obstetric circles as "Simpson's Forceps" and, like Semmelweis, fought against the contagion of puerperal sepsis. His most noted contribution was the introduction of anesthesia to childbirth. Simpson's intellectual interests ranged from archaeology to an almost taboo subject at the time: hermaphroditism. He was a very early advocate of the use of midwives in the hospital environment. Many prominent women also consulted him for their gynaecological problems.
- Week 24
The ruins of Linlithgow Palace are situated in the town of Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland, 15 miles (24 km) west of Edinburgh. The palace was one of the principal residences of the monarchs of Scotland in the 15th and 16th centuries. Although maintained after Scotland's monarchs left for England in 1603, the palace was little used, and was burned out in 1746. It is now a visitor attraction in the care of Historic Scotland. A royal manor existed on the site in the 12th century. This was replaced by a fortification known as 'the Peel', built in the 14th century by English forces under Edward I. The site of the manor made it an ideal military base for securing the supply routes between Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle.
In 1424, the town of Linlithgow was partially destroyed in a great fire. King James I started the rebuilding of the Palace as a grand residence for Scottish royalty. Over the following century the palace developed into a formal courtyard structure, with significant additions by James III and James IV. James V, who was born in the palace in April 1512, added the outer gateway and the elaborate courtyard fountain. The stonework of the South façade was renewed and unified for James V in the 1530s by the keeper, James Hamilton of Finnart. Mary, Queen of Scots, was born at the Palace in December 1542 and occasionally stayed there during her reign. The daughter of James VI, Elizabeth of Bohemia, lived in the Palace. After the Union of the Crowns in 1603 the Royal Court became largely based in England and Linlithgow was used very little.
- Week 25
The Battle of Stirling Bridge was a battle of the First War of Scottish Independence. On 11 September 1297, the forces of Andrew Moray and William Wallace defeated the combined English forces of John de Warenne and Hugh de Cressingham near Stirling, on the River Forth. De Warenne had won a victory over the aristocracy of Scotland at the Battle of Dunbar and his belief that he was now dealing with a rabble proved that he had greatly underestimated the Scottish forces. The small bridge at Stirling was only broad enough to allow two horsemen to cross abreast.
The Scots deployed in a commanding position dominating the soft, flat ground to the north of the river and waited as the English knights and infantry made their slow progress across the bridge. When the vanguard, comprising 5,400 English and Welsh infantry plus several hundred cavalry, had crossed the Bridge, the attack was ordered. The Scots spearmen came down from the high ground, quickly seizing control of the English bridgehead. De Warenne's vanguard was now cut off from the rest of the army. The heavy cavalry to the north of the river was trapped and cut to pieces (due, in part, to the strewing of caltrop's to de-seat the cavalry making them easy targets for the Scottish forces).
The Battle of Stirling Bridge was a shattering defeat for the English: it showed that under certain circumstances infantry could be superior to cavalry. It was to be some time, though, before this lesson was fully absorbed. Contemporary English chronicler Walter of Guisborough recorded the English losses in the battle as 100 cavalry and 5,000 infantry killed.
- Week 26
James "Jim" (or "Jimmy") Clark, Jr OBE (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. Clark was a versatile driver who competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapolis 500, which he won in 1965. He was particularly associated with the Lotus marque. He was killed in a Formula Two motor racing accident in Hockenheim, Germany in 1968. At the time of his death, he had won more Grand Prix races (25) and achieved more Grand Prix pole positions (33) than any other driver. The Times recently placed Clark at the top of a list of the greatest Formula One drivers.
James Clark Jr was born into a farming family at Kilmany House Farm, Fife, the youngest child of five, and the only boy. In 1942 the family moved to Edington Mains Farm, near Duns, Berwickshire, in the Borders. Although his parents were opposed to the idea, Clark started his racing in local road rally and hill climb events driving his own Sunbeam-Talbot, and proved a fearsome competitor right from the start. On 16 June 1956, in his very first event, he was behind the wheel of a DKW sonderklasse at Crimond, Scotland. By 1958, Clark was driving for the local Border Reivers team, racing Jaguar D-types and Porsches in national events, and winning 18 races.
- Week 27
The Hebrides were settled early on in the settlement of the British Isles, perhaps as early as the Mesolithic era, around 8500-8250 BC, after the climatic conditions improved enough to sustain human settlement. There are examples of structures possibly dating from up to 3000 BC, the finest example being the standing stones at Callanish. Little is known of the people who settled in the Hebrides but they were likely of the same Celtic stock that had settled in the rest of Scotland. Settlements at Northton, Harris, have both Beaker & Neolithic dwelling houses, the oldest in the Western Isles, attesting to the settlement. The earliest written mention of the Outer Hebrides was by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in 55 BC. He wrote that there was an island called Hyperborea (which means "Far to the North") where a round temple stood from which the moon appeared only a little distance above the earth every 19 years, an apparent reference to the stone circle at Callanish. Other ancient writers such as Pliny the Elder, the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy, and Solinus (3rd Century AD) all seem to mention the Hebrides, attesting to some contact of the peoples there to the Roman world.
Norse control of the Hebrides was formalised in 1098 when Edgar of Scotland recognised the claim of Magnus III of Norway. The Scottish acceptance of Magnus III as King of the Isles came after the Norwegian king had conquered the Orkney Islands, the Hebrides and the Isle of Man in a swift campaign earlier the same year, directed against the local Norwegian leaders of the various islands. By capturing the islands Magnus III subdued the Norsemen who had seized the islands centuries earlier and imposed a more direct royal control. The Norwegian control of both the Inner and Outer Hebrides would see almost constant warfare until being ultimately resolved by the partitioning of the Western Isles in 1156. Although the Inner Hebrides, from 1156, known as the Kingdom of the Hebrides, was still nominally under the sovereignty of Norway, the leaders were Scottish in language and culture rather than Norse.
- Week 28
Sir William Arrol (1839–1913) was a Scottish civil engineer, bridge builder, and Liberal Party politician. The son of a spinner, he was born in Houston, Renfrewshire, and started work in a cotton mill at only 9 years of age. He started training as a blacksmith by age 13, and went on to learn mechanics and hydraulics at night school. In 1863 he joined a company of bridge manufacturers in Glasgow, but by 1872 he had established his own business, the Dalmarnock Iron Works, in the east end of the city. In the late 1870s he went on to found Sir William Arrol & Co., a leading international civil engineering business. In 1878, he secured the contract for the Caledonian Railway Bridge over the Clyde, and in 1882 he was awarded the reconstruction contract for the Tay Rail Bridge, which had collapsed in 1879.
His company went on to construct the Forth Bridge which was completed in 1890. At the time, the Tay and Forth bridges were the largest of their type in the world. They were notable not just for their size but also the use of steel in the Forth bridge, and the riveting method developed by Arrol to attach the girders to one another. The Forth Bridge bridge is, even today, regarded as an engineering marvel. It is 2.5 km (1.6 mi) in length, and the double track is elevated 46 m (approx. 150 ft) above high tide. It consists of three main spans of 1,710 ft (520 m), two side spans of 675 ft, 15 approach spans of 168 ft (51 m), and five of 25 ft (7.6 m). Each main span comprises two 680 ft (210 m) cantilever arms supporting a central 350 ft (110 m) span girder bridge. The three great four-tower cantilever structures are 340 ft (104 m) tall, each 70 ft (21 m) diameter foot resting on a separate foundation. The southern group of foundations had to be constructed as caissons under compressed air, to a depth of 90 ft (27 m). Both bridges are known for their high safety factors, a natural result of the under-design of the first Tay bridge by Thomas Bouch, and both bridges have recently (2008) been renovated.
- Week 29
The Monymusk Reliquary is an eighth century Scottish reliquary made of wood and metal characterised by an Insular fusion of Gaelic and Pictish design and Anglo-Saxon metalworking, probably by Ionan monks. It has been said to be the Brecbennoch of St. Columba (modern Gaelic Breac Bannoch or "embossed peaked-thing"), a sacred battle ensign of the Scottish army, used for saintly assistance, but is now thought not to be the object mentioned in historical records. Very few Insular reliquaries survive, although many are mentioned in contemporary records. It is an early example of the chasse or house-shaped reliquary, that became popular across Europe later in the Middle Ages, perhaps influenced by Insular styles. The Monymusk Reliquary is now empty.
It is characterised by a mixture of Pictish artistic designs and Irish artistic traditions (perhaps first brought to Scotland by Irish missionaries in the sixth century), fused with Anglo-Saxon metalworking techniques, an artistic movement now classified as Insular or Hiberno-Saxon art. The casket is wooden, but is covered with silver and copper-alloy. It was made around 750, probably by Ionan monks. It shows a combination of the Pictish and Insular styles which appear in manuscripts such as the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 715 AD). The silver plates on the front and lid of the casket are decorated with beasts leaping and twisting, and biting at their tails on a spotted field, characteristic of animal style in Celtic art.
- Week 30
Sir Christopher Andrew Hoy, MBE (born 23 March 1976), known as Chris Hoy, is a British racing driver and former track cyclist who represented Great Britain at the Olympics and World Championships and Scotland at the Commonwealth Games. Hoy is an eleven-time world champion, six-time Olympic champion and a winner of a total of seven Olympic Games medals, six gold and one silver. With his three gold medals in Beijing 2008, Hoy became Scotland's most successful Olympian, the first Briton to win three gold medals in a single Olympic games since Henry Taylor, in 1908, and the most successful Olympic cyclist. He won a further two gold medals (in the keirin and team sprint) at the London 2012 Olympics, making him the most successful British Olympian of all time in terms of gold medals, and the joint most decorated athlete with Bradley Wiggins with seven medals in total.
Born in Edinburgh in Scotland, Hoy was educated at George Watson's College, a co-educational independent school in Edinburgh, followed by the University of St Andrews in 1996. He subsequently transferred to the University of Edinburgh, from which he graduated B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Sports Science in 1999. Hoy was inspired to cycle at age six by the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Before track cycling, Hoy raced BMX between the ages of 7 and 14 and was ranked second in Britain, fifth in Europe, and ninth in the world. He received sponsorship from Slazenger and Kwik-Fit, and was competing in Europe and the U.S. He first became aware of track cycling when he watched TV coverage of Scottish sprinter Eddie Alexander winning a bronze medal at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Hoy also rowed for the Scottish junior team, coming second in the 1993 British championship with Grant Florence in the coxless pairs. He played rugby as part of his school's team.
- Week 31
The Renaissance in Scotland was a cultural, intellectual and artistic movement in Scotland, from the late fifteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late fourteenth century and reaching northern Europe as a Northern Renaissance in the fifteenth century. It involved an attempt to revive the principles of the classical era, including humanism, a spirit of scholarly enquiry, scepticism, and concepts of balance and proportion. Since the twentieth century the uniqueness and unity of the Renaissance has been challenged by historians, but significant changes in Scotland can be seen to have taken place in education, intellectual life, literature, art, architecture, music and politics.
The Renaissance led to the adoption of ideas of imperial monarchy, encouraging the Scottish crown to join the new monarchies by asserting imperial jurisdiction and distinction. The growing emphasis on education in the Middle Ages became part of a humanist and then Protestant programme to extend and reform learning. It resulted in the expansion of the school system and the foundation of six university colleges by the end of the sixteenth century. Relatively large numbers of Scottish scholars studied on the continent or in England and some, such as Hector Boece, John Mair, Andrew Melville and George Buchanan, returned to Scotland to play a major part in developing Scottish intellectual life. Vernacular works in Scots began to emerge in the fifteenth century, while Latin remained a major literary language. With the patronage of James V and James VI, writers included William Stewart, John Bellenden, David Lyndsay, William Fowler and Alexander Montgomerie. In the sixteenth century, Scottish kings, particularly James V, built palaces in a Renaissance style, beginning at Linlithgow.
- Week 32
James Ferguson (25 April 1710 – 17 November 1776) was a Scottish astronomer, instrument and globe maker. Ferguson's globes were inspired by the early 18th Century globes of John Senex. Senex sold James Ferguson the copper plates for his globe gores, but not the copper plates used for Senex's pocket globe gores. Consequently, Ferguson designed his own pocket globe, producing several editions. Ferguson had some Senex gores re-engraved by a certain James Mynde, showing Admiral Anson's voyages of the years 1740-1744. Ferguson was born near Rothiemay in Banffshire of humble parents. According to his autobiography, he learnt to read by hearing his father teach his elder brother, and with the help of an old woman was able to read quite well before his father thought of teaching him. After his father taught him to write, he was sent at the age of seven for three months to the grammar school at Keith and that was all the formal education he ever received. His taste for mechanics was about this time accidentally awakened on seeing his father making use of a lever to raise a part of the roof of his house — an exhibition of strength which excited his wonder.
In 1734 he went to Edinburgh, where he began to make portraits in miniature, by which means, while engaged in his scientific studies, he supported himself and his family for many years. Subsequently he settled at Inverness, where he drew up his Astronomical Rotula for showing the motions of the planets, places of the sun and moon, &c.. He wrote various papers for the Royal Society of London, of which he became a Fellow in November 1763, devised astronomical and mechanical models, and in 1748 began to give public lectures on experimental philosophy. These he repeated in most of the principal towns in England. His deep interest in his subject, his clear explanations, his ingeniously constructed diagrams, and his mechanical apparatus rendered him one of the most successful of popular lecturers on scientific subjects. It is, however, as the inventor and improver of astronomical and other scientific apparatus, and as a striking instance of self-education, that he claims a place among the most remarkable men of science of his country.
- Week 33
John Loudon McAdam (21 September 1756 – 26 November 1836) was a Scottish engineer and road-builder. He invented a new process, "macadamisation", for building roads with a smooth hard surface, using controlled materials of mixed particle size and predetermined structure, that would be more durable and less muddy than soil-based tracks. McAdam was born in Ayr, Scotland. He was the youngest of ten children and second son of the Baron of Waterhead. The family name was traditionally called McGregor, but was changed to McAdam (claiming descent from the Biblical Adam) for political reasons in James I's reign. He moved to New York in 1770 and, as a merchant and prize agent during the American Revolution, made his fortune working at his uncle's counting house. He returned to Scotland in 1783 and purchased an estate at Sauchrie, Ayrshire.
McAdam was appointed surveyor to the Bristol Turnpike Trust in 1816, where he decided to remake the roads under his care with crushed stone bound with gravel on a firm base of large stones. A camber, making the road slightly convex, ensured rainwater rapidly drained off the road rather than penetrate and damage the road's foundations. This construction method, the greatest advance in road construction since Roman times, became known as "macadamisation", or, more simply, "macadam". The macadam method spread very quickly across the world. The first macadam road in North America, the National Road, was completed in the 1830s and most of the main roads in Europe were subject to the McAdam process by the end of the nineteenth century. Modern road construction still reflects McAdam's influence. Of subsequent improvements, the most significant was the introduction of tar (originally coal tar) to bind the road surface's stones together, "tarmac" (for Tar Macadam).
- Week 34
Knap of Howar on the island of Papa Westray in Orkney, Scotland, a Neolithic farmstead may be the oldest preserved stone house in northern Europe. Radiocarbon dating shows that it was occupied from 3700 BC to 2800 BC, earlier than the similar houses in the settlement at Skara Brae on the Orkney Mainland. The farmstead consists of two adjacent rounded rectangular thick-walled buildings with very low doorways facing the sea. The larger and older structure is linked by a low passageway to the other building, which has been interpreted as a workshop or a second house. They were constructed on an earlier midden, and were surrounded by midden material which has protected them. There are no windows; the structures were presumably lit by fire, with a hole in the roof to let out smoke. Though they now stand close to the shore, they would have originally lain inland. The shore shows how the local stone splits into thin slabs, giving a ready source of construction material.
The walls still stand to an eaves height of 1.6m, and the stone furniture is intact giving a vivid impression of life in the house. Fireplaces, partition screens, beds and storage shelves are almost intact, and post holes were found indicating the roof structure. Evidence from the middens shows that the inhabitants were keeping cattle, sheep and pigs, cultivating barley and wheat and gathering shellfish as well as fishing for species which have to be line caught using boats. Finds of finely-made and decorated Unstan ware pottery link the inhabitants to chambered cairn tombs nearby and to sites far afield including Balbridie and Eilean Domhnuill. The site is in the care of Historic Scotland.
- Week 35
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Armando Iannucci, OBE (/ɑːrˈmændoʊ jəˈnuːtʃi/; born 28 November 1963) is a Scottish satirist, writer, television director and radio producer. Born in Glasgow, he studied at Oxford University and left graduate work on a PhD about John Milton to pursue a career in comedy. Rising quickly through BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4, his early work with Chris Morris on the radio series On the Hour was transferred to television as The Day Today. A character from this series, Alan Partridge, went on to feature in a number of Iannucci's television and radio programmes including Knowing Me, Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge. In the meantime, Iannucci also fronted the satirical Armistice review shows and in 2001 created his most personal work, The Armando Iannucci Shows, for Channel 4.
Moving back to the BBC in 2005, Iannucci created the political sitcom The Thick of It as well as the spoof documentary Time Trumpet in 2006. Winning funding from the UK Film Council, he directed a critically acclaimed feature film In the Loop featuring characters from The Thick of It in 2009. As a result of these works, he has been described by The Daily Telegraph as "the hardman of political satire". Other works during this period include an operetta libretto, Skin Deep, and his radio series Charm Offensive. Iannucci created the HBO political satire Veep, and was its showrunner for four seasons from 2010 to 2014. In March 2012 it was announced that he is working on his first novel, Tongue International, described as 'a satirical fantasy about a privatised language'.
- Week 36
The Torrs Horns and Torrs Pony-cap (once together known as the Torrs Chamfrein) are Iron Age bronze pieces now in the National Museum of Scotland, which were found together, but whose relationship is one of many questions about these "famous and controversial" objects that continue to be debated by scholars. Most scholars agree that horns were added to the pony-cap at a later date, but whether they were originally made for this purpose is unclear; one theory sees them as mounts for drinking-horns, either totally or initially unconnected to the cap. The dates ascribed to the elements vary, but are typically around 200 BC; it is generally agreed that the horns are somewhat later than the cap, and in a rather different style.
The artefacts were found together, but with the horns detached from the cap, "about 1820" and "before 1829", in a peat bog at Torrs Farm, Kelton, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, the context suggesting they were a votive deposit (the bog may once have been a pool or lake). They were given by the local exciseman to the novelist Sir Walter Scott, and long displayed with the horns attached to the cap at Abbotsford House, which was opened for public visits from 1833, soon after Scott's death. They are very finely designed and skillfully executed, and form part of a small surviving group of elaborate metal objects found around the British Isles that were commissioned by the elite of Iron Age British and Irish society in the final centuries before the arrival of the Romans.
- Week 37
The Jacobite risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by Parliament during the Glorious Revolution. The series of conflicts takes its name from Jacobus, the Latin form of James. The major Jacobite Risings were called the Jacobite Rebellions by the ruling governments. The "First Jacobite Rebellion" and "Second Jacobite Rebellion" were known respectively as "The Fifteen" and "The Forty-Five", after the years in which they occurred (1715 and 1745).
Although each Jacobite Rising had unique features, they were part of a larger series of military campaigns by Jacobites attempting to restore the Stuart kings to the thrones of Scotland and England (and after 1707, Great Britain). James was deposed in 1688 and the thrones were claimed by his daughter Mary II jointly with her husband, the Dutch-born William of Orange. After the House of Hanover succeeded to the British throne in 1714, the risings continued, and intensified. They continued until the last Jacobite Rebellion ("the Forty-Five"), led by Charles Edward Stuart (the Young Pretender), who was soundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. This ended any realistic hope of a Stuart restoration.
- Week 38
Fair Isle (from Old Norse Frjóey; Scottish Gaelic Fara) is an island in northern Scotland, lying around halfway between mainland Shetland and the Orkney islands. It is famous for its bird observatory and a traditional style of knitting. Fair Isle is the most remote inhabited island in the United Kingdom. The island is administratively part of Shetland and lies 38 kilometres (24 mi) south-west of Sumburgh Head on the Mainland of Shetland and 43 kilometres (27 mi) north-east of North Ronaldsay, Orkney. 4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi) in length and 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) wide, it has an area of 768 hectares (3 square miles), making it the tenth largest of the Shetland Islands. It gives its name to one of the British Sea Areas.
The majority of the seventy islanders live in the crofts on the southern half of the island, with the northern half consisting of rocky moorland. The western coast consists of cliffs of up to 200 metres (660 feet) in height. The population has been decreasing steadily from around four hundred in around 1900. There are no pubs or restaurants on the island, and there is but a single primary school. After the age of eleven, children must attend secondary school in Lerwick and stay in a hostel there in term time.
- Week 39
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Sir Patrick Geddes FRSE (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner (see List of urban theorists). He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban planning and sociology. He was responsible for introducing the concept of "region" to architecture and planning and is also known to have coined the term "conurbation". An energetic Francophile, Geddes was the founder of the Collège des Écossais (Scots College) an international teaching establishment in Montpellier, France.
The son of Janet Stevenson and soldier Alexander Geddes, Patrick Geddes was born in Ballater, Aberdeenshire, and educated at Perth Academy. He studied at the Royal College of Mines in London under Thomas Henry Huxley between 1874 and 1878, and lectured in Zoology at Edinburgh University from 1880 to 1888. Geddes wrote with J. Arthur Thomson an early book on sexology, The Evolution of Sex (1889). He held the Chair of Botany at University College Dundee from 1888 to 1919, and the Chair of Sociology at the University of Bombay from 1919 to 1924. While he thought of himself primarily as a sociologist, it was his commitment to close social observation and ability to turn these into practical solutions for city design and improvement that earned him a ‘revered place amongst the founding fathers of the British town planning movement’. He was knighted in 1932, shortly before his death in Montpellier, France on 17 April 1932.
- Week 40
The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the Royal Museum next door, with collections covering science and technology, natural history, and world cultures. The two connected buildings stand beside each other on Chambers Street, by the intersection with the George IV Bridge, in central Edinburgh. The museum is part of National Museums Scotland. Admission is free.
The two buildings retain distinctive characters: the former Museum of Scotland is housed in a modern building opened in 1998, while the former Royal Museum building was begun in 1861, and partially opened in 1866, with a Victorian Romanesque Revival facade and a grand central hall of cast iron construction that rises the full height of the building. This building re-opened on 29 July 2011 after a £47 million project to restore and extend the building, and redesign the exhibitions. The museum incorporates the collections of the former National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, and the Royal Museum. As well as the main national collections of Scottish archaeological finds and medieval objects, the museum contains artifacts from around the world, encompassing geology, archaeology, natural history, science, technology and art. The 16 new galleries re-opened in 2011 include 8,000 objects, 80% of which were not formerly on display.
- Week 41
John Duns, commonly called Duns Scotus (/ˈdʌnz ˈskoʊtəs, ˈskɒtəs/; c. 1266 – 8 November 1308), is generally considered to be one of the three most important philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages. Scotus has had considerable influence on both Catholic and secular thought. The doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being," that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists; the formal distinction, a way of distinguishing between different aspects of the same thing; and the idea of haecceity, the property supposed to be in each individual thing that makes it an individual. Scotus also developed a complex argument for the existence of God, and argued for the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Duns Scotus was given the scholastic accolade Doctor Subtilis (Subtle Doctor) for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1993.
Little is known of Duns Scotus apart from his work. His date of birth is thought to have been between 23 December 1265 and 17 March 1266, born into a leading family of the region. The site of his birth, in front of the Pavilion Lodge, near the North Lodge of Duns Castle, is now marked by a cairn which was erected in 1966 by the Franciscan friars of the United Kingdom to mark the 700th anniversary of his birth. Duns Scotus received the religious habit of the Friars Minor at Dumfries, where his uncle, Elias Duns, was guardian.
- Week 42
Scapa Flow (/ˈskɑːpə/ or /ˈskæpə/; from Old Norse Skalpaflói 'bay of the long isthmus' is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It has a shallow sandy bottom not deeper than 60 metres (200 ft) and most of it about 30 metres (98 ft) deep, and is one of the great natural harbours/anchorages of the world, with sufficient space to hold a number of navies. Scapa Flow is one of Britain's most historic stretches of water - located within the Orkney Islands, off the northeast coast of Scotland. Its sheltered waters have been used by ships since prehistory and it has played an important role in travel, trade and conflict throughout the centuries - especially during both World Wars. It is currently a world-famous diving location, with the wrecks of the scuttled German Fleet offering unique diving challenges. Scapa Flow is also a major oil port serving the Flotta Oil Terminal, and is a prime location of ship-to-ship transfers of crude oil product and liquefied natural gas (LNG). The world’s first ship-to-ship transfer of LNG took place in Scapa Flow in 2007.
The Viking expeditions to Orkney are recorded in detail in the 11th century Orkneyinga sagas and later texts such as the Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar. According to the latter, King Haakon IV of Norway anchored his fleet, including the flagship Kroussden that could carry nearly 300 men, at St Margaret's Hope on 5 August 1263 where he witnessed an eclipse of the sun prior to sailing south to the Battle of Largs. On route back to Norway Haakon anchored some of his fleet in Scapa Flow for the winter, but he died that December whilst staying at the Bishop's Palace in Kirkwall. In the 15th century towards the end of Norse rule in Orkney, the islands were run by the jarls from large manor farms some of which were sited at Burray, Burwick, Paplay, Hoy and Cairston (near Stromness) to guard the entrances to the Flow.
- Week 43
Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045 – 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland". Born in exile in Hungary, she was the sister of Edgar Ætheling, the short-ruling and uncrowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. Margaret and her family returned to England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman conquest of England of 1066. Around 1070 Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming Scottish queen. She was a pious woman, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth for pilgrims travelling to Dunfermline Abbey, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland (or four, if one includes Edmund of Scotland, who ruled Scotland with his uncle, Donald III) and of a queen consort of England. According to the Life of Saint Margaret, attributed to Turgot of Durham, she died at Edinburgh Castle in 1093, just days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle. In 1250 she was canonized by Pope Innocent IV, and her remains were reinterred in a shrine at Dunfermline Abbey. Her relics were dispersed after the Scottish Reformation and subsequently lost.
Margaret was the daughter of the English prince Edward the Exile, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, king of England. After the Danish conquest of England in 1016, Canute had the infant Edward exiled to the continent. He was taken first to the court of the Swedish king, Olof Skötkonung, and then to Kiev. The provenance of Margaret's mother, Agatha, is legally disputed, but Margaret was born in Hungary around 1045. Her brother Edgar the Ætheling and her sister Cristina were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret grew up in a very religious environment in the Hungarian court.
- Week 44
A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs include some of the most sophisticated examples of drystone architecture ever created, and belong to the classification "complex Atlantic Roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. The theory that they were defensive military structures is not accepted by many modern archaeologists, while the alternative notion that they were farmhouses is dismissed by some others. Although most stand alone in the landscape, some examples exist of brochs surrounded by clusters of smaller dwellings. There is controversy about whether or not brochs were roofed.
The word broch is derived from Lowland Scots 'brough', meaning (among other things) fort. In the mid-19th century Scottish antiquaries called brochs 'burgs', after Old Norse borg, with the same meaning. Place names in Scandinavian Scotland such as Burgawater and Burgan show that O.N. borg is the older word used for these structures in the north. Brochs are often referred to as 'duns' in the west. Antiquaries began to use the spelling 'broch' in the 1870s. A precise definition for the word has proved elusive. Brochs are the most spectacular of a complex class of roundhouse buildings found throughout "Atlantic Scotland". The Shetland Amenity Trust lists about 120 sites in Shetland as candidate brochs, while The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland identifies a total of 571 candidate broch sites throughout the country.
- Week 45
Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930) is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one of them being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award) and three Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award). He was knighted by Elizabeth II in July 2000 after receiving Kennedy Center Honors in the US in 1999. Connery is best known for portraying the character James Bond, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His film career also includes such films as Marnie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Murder on the Orient Express, Dragonheart, and The Rock. Connery has been polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine and in 1999, at age 69, he was voted "Sexiest Man of the Century".
Thomas Sean Connery, named Thomas after his grandfather, was born in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, to Euphemia McBain "Effie" (née McLean), a cleaning woman, and Joseph Connery, a factory worker and lorry driver. His paternal grandfather's parents emigrated to Scotland from Ireland in the mid-19th century. The remainder of his family was of Scottish descent, and both his mother's parents were native Scottish Gaelic speakers from Fife and Uig on the Isle of Skye. His father was a Roman Catholic, while his mother was a Protestant.
- Week 46
The Eriskay Pony is a breed of pony from Scotland. It is generally grey in colour, and has a dense, waterproof coat that protects it in harsh weather. The breed developed in ancient times in the Hebrides islands in Scotland, and a small population remained pure and protected from crossbreeding by the remoteness of the islands. It is used for light draught ] work, as a mount for children, in many equestrian disciplines, and for driving. The breed is rare today, with the Rare Breeds Survival Trust considering their status critical. There are two breed registries for the Eriskay, the first formed in 1971 and the second in 1986.
The Pony generally stands between 12 and 13.2 hands (48 and 54 inches, 122 and 137 cm). It is usually grey in colour, although a few are bay or black. Dark coloured animals generally have the pangaré characteristics of a light-coloured muzzle and ring around their eye. However, according to breed standards, they should not have an eel stripe. Chestnut, piebald, skewbald and excess white markings are discouraged by breed registries. The winter coat is dense and waterproof to protect from the harsh climate, with a thick mane and tail. The head is large, with a wide forehead. The neck and shoulders are well muscled, and the chest deep but generally not broad. The rib-cage is long and the loins short, which increases the strength of the back. The croup is slightly sloping. It is quite similar to the Exmoor pony in body type. The Eriskay has an easy-going temperament and is suitable as a mount for children. It is used for light draught work, as well as dressage, show jumping, three-day eventing, western riding and driving. Eriskays have successfully competed in combined driving at highly competitive international level competitions sanctioned by the Fédération Équestre Internationale. They have also been used in therapeutic horse-riding.
- Week 47
Peter Guthrie Tait FRSE (28 April 1831 – 4 July 1901) was a Scottish mathematical physicist, best known for the seminal energy physics textbook Treatise on Natural Philosophy, which he co-wrote with Kelvin, and his early investigations into knot theory, which contributed to the eventual formation of topology as a mathematical discipline. His name is known in graph theory mainly for Tait's conjecture. He was born in Dalkeith. After attending the Edinburgh Academy and University of Edinburgh, he went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge, graduating as senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman in 1852. As a fellow and lecturer of his college he remained in Cambridge for two years longer, and then left to take up the professorship of mathematics at Queen's College, Belfast. There he made the acquaintance of Thomas Andrews, whom he joined in researches on the density of ozone and the action of the electric discharge on oxygen and other gases, and by whom he was introduced to Sir William Rowan Hamilton and quaternions.
In 1860, Tait succeeded his old master, JD Forbes, as professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh, and occupied that chair until shortly before his death. The first scientific paper under Tait's name only was published in 1860. His earliest work dealt mainly with mathematical subjects, and especially with quaternions, which he was the leading exponent of after their originator, Hamilton. He was the author of two text-books on them—one an Elementary Treatise on Quaternions (1867), written with the advice of Hamilton, though not published till after his death, and the other an Introduction to Quaternions (1873), in which he was aided by Philip Kelland (1808–1879), one of his teachers at Edinburgh. Quaternions was also one of the themes of his address as president of the mathematical section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1871.
- Week 48
Sir Compton Mackenzie, OBE (/ˈkʌmptən məˈkɛnzɪ/; 1883–1972) was a prolific writer of fiction, biography, histories, and memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur, and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of the Scottish National Party along with Hugh MacDiarmid, RB Cunninghame Graham and John MacCormick. Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool, England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, but many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his grandfather Henry Compton, a well-known Shakespearean actor of the Victorian era. His father, Edward Compton, was an actor and theatre company manager; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of J. M. Barrie's plays, including Peter Pan. He was educated at St Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in modern history.
Sir Compton Mackenzie is perhaps best known for two comedies set in Scotland, the Hebridean Whisky Galore (1947) and the Highland The Monarch of the Glen (1941), sources of a successful film and a television series respectively. He published almost a hundred books on different subjects, including ten volumes of autobiography, My Life and Times (1963–1971). He also wrote history (on Marathon and Salamis), biography (Mr Roosevelt, 1943, a biography of FDR), literary criticism, satires, apologia (Sublime Tobacco 1957), children's stories, poetry, and so on. Of his fiction, The Four Winds of Love is sometimes considered to be his magnum opus. It is described by Dr. John MacInnes (formerly of the School of Scottish Studies) as "one of the greatest works of English literature produced in the twentieth century."
- Week 49
A crannog (/ˈkrænəɡ/; Irish: crannóg [ˈkɾˠan̪ˠoːɡ]; Scottish Gaelic: crannag) is typically a partially or entirely artificial island, usually built in lakes, rivers and estuarine waters of Scotland and Ireland. Unlike the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps which were built on the shores and were only inundated later on, crannogs were built in the water, thus forming artificial islands.
Crannogs were used as dwellings over five millennia from the European Neolithic Period, to as late as the 17th/early 18th century although in Scotland, convincing evidence for Early and Middle Bronze Age or Norse Period use is not currently present in the archaeological record. The earliest radiocarbon determinations obtained from key sites such as Oakbank in Loch Tay or Redcastle, Beauly Firth approach the Late Bronze Age - Early Iron Age transition at their widest interpretation at 2 sigma or 95.4% probability, falling after c.800BC and therefore could only be considered Late Bronze Age by the narrowest of margins. Crannogs have been variously interpreted as free-standing wooden structures, as at Loch Tay, although more commonly they exist as brush, stone or timber mounds which can be revetted with timber piles. However, in areas such as the Western Isles of Scotland, timber was unavailable from the Neolithic onwards. As a result, completely stone crannogs supporting drystone architecture are common here. Today, crannogs typically appear as small, circular islets, often 10 to 30 metres (30 to 100 ft) in diameter, covered in dense vegetation due to their inaccessibility to grazing livestock.
- Week 50
Desperate Dan is a wild west character in the British comic The Dandy, published by D. C. Thomson & Co., Dundee. He made his appearance in the first issue which was dated 4 December 1937. He is apparently the world's strongest man, able to lift a cow with one hand. The pillow of his (reinforced) bed is filled with building rubble and his beard is so tough he shaves with a blowtorch. Desperate Dan's favourite food is cow pie – a type of enormous meat pie with the horns sticking out. Much like Popeye with his spinach, Desperate Dan draws his immense power from eating these pies. Desperate Dan was voted the UK's second favourite superhero after Batman in 2011.
The strip was drawn by Dudley D. Watkins until his death in 1969. Although The Dandy Annuals featured new strips from other artists from then on, the comic continued reprinting Watkins strips until 1983 (though the then Korky the Cat artist Charles Grigg drew new strips for annuals and summer specials), when it was decided to start running new strips. These were initially drawn by Peter Davidson, but Ken H. Harrison soon took over as regular artist. The following year Dan was promoted to the front cover of The Dandy, replacing Korky who had been there since issue 1. Although Ken Harrison was the main artist from 1983 to 2007, other artists have also occasionally filled in for Harrison, including David Parkins and Trevor Metcalfe in the early 1990s. John Geering took over the strip between 1994 and 1997, after which Harrison returned as full-time artist. When the Dandy was redesigned and renamed Dandy Xtreme, the writers used reprints of the old comic strips, until Jamie Smart took over drawing and writing the Desperate Dan comic strips in April 2008.
- Week 51
The Fairy Flag (Scottish Gaelic: Am Bratach Sìth) is an heirloom of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod. It is held in Dunvegan Castle along with other notable heirlooms, such as the Dunvegan Cup and Sir Rory Mor's Horn. The Fairy Flag is known for the numerous traditions of fairies, and magical properties associated with it. The flag is made of silk, is yellow or brown in colour, and measures about 18 inches (46 cm) squared. It has been examined numerous times in the last two centuries, and its condition has somewhat deteriorated. It is ripped and tattered, and is considered to be extremely fragile. The flag is covered in small red "elf dots". In the early part of the 19th century, the flag was also marked with small crosses, but these have since disappeared. The silk of the flag has been stated to have originated in the Far East, and was therefore extremely precious, which led some to believe that the flag may have been an important relic of some sort. Others have attempted to associate the flag with the Crusades or even a raven banner, which was said to have been used by various Viking leaders in the British Isles.
There are numerous traditions and stories associated with the flag, most of which deal with its magical properties and mysterious origins. The flag is said to have originated as: a gift from the fairies to an infant chieftain; a gift to a chief from a departing fairy-lover; a reward for defeating an evil spirit. The various powers attributed to the Fairy Flag include: the ability to multiply a clan's military forces; the ability to save the lives of certain clanfolk; the ability to cure a plague on cattle; the ability to increase the chances of fertility; and the ability to bring herring into the loch at Dunvegan. Some traditions relate that if the flag were to be unfurled and waved more than three times, it would either vanish, or lose its powers forever.
- Week 52
Iain Banks (16 February 1954 – 9 June 2013) was a Scottish author. He wrote mainstream fiction under the name Iain Banks, and science fiction as Iain M. Banks, including the initial of his adopted middle name Menzies (/ˈmɪŋɪz/ or "MING-iz"). Banks decided to become a writer at the age of 11 and completed his first novel The Hungarian Lift-Jet at 16. Following the publication and success of The Wasp Factory (1984), Banks began to write full-time. His editor at Macmillan, James Hale, advised him to write one book a year and Banks agreed to this schedule.
His parents had intended to name him "Iain Menzies Banks", but his father made a mistake when registering the birth and "Iain Banks" became his officially registered name. Despite this error, Banks continued to use his middle name and submitted The Wasp Factory for publication as "Iain M. Banks". Banks' editor enquired about the possibility of omitting the 'M' as it appeared "too fussy" and the potential existed for confusion with Rosie M. Banks, a romantic novelist in the Jeeves novels by P. G. Wodehouse; Banks agreed to the omission. Following three mainstream novels, Banks' publishers agreed to publish his first science fiction (SF) novel Consider Phlebas, released in 1987, marking the start of the popular The Culture series. To create a distinction between the mainstream and SF novels, Banks suggested the return of the 'M' to his name and the author's second title was consequently confirmed. His books have been adapted for theatre, radio and television; The Crow Road (1992) was adapted as a BBC television series and Espedair Street (1987) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In 2008, The Times named Banks in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In April 2013, Banks announced that he had inoperable cancer and was unlikely to live beyond a year. He died on 9 June 2013.