Giving three pages of text to each of 50 significant historical events, Days that changed the world by Hywel Williams is a great introduction to history. Starting at The Battle of Salamis in 480BC and going through to 11 September 2001, the book looks at the significance of many events not just battles and wars. The invention of the telephone, the publication of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, the OPEC oil price rises and the rise of Bill Gates all get a look in as well.

The book givea a small taste of many events, just enough to let you decide whether it is something you would like to read more about. I though I had a reasonable knowledge of history, but the section called “Tokugawa Ieyasu win the battle of Sekigahara” made me realised that I know nothing of Asian history.

The layout of the book is pretty straight forward and is practical rather than attractive. Regardless it is a very entertaining read, and since eacg section is only 3 pages, it is good for reading in situations where you don’t have time to complete entire chapters. Recommended.

This morning I finished watching “The Wind Gone With”. No that’s not a typo. Neither my wife nor I had seen “Gone with the Wind“, so we got it via the Big Pond Movies home delivered DVD scheme. The movie is so long (about twice as long as the civil war) that it takes up too DVDs. Big Ponds copy is a single double sided DVD something we had not seen before.

My wife put the DVD in the player, started the movie and I started watching a few minutes later. We watched for about 90 minutes and then paused the film as we prepared something to eat. We were at the stage of the movie where Rhett and Scarlet have a big fight and Rhett goes off to see Belle. It seemed to us as if the movie was starting to wind up but I hadn’t seen any of the civil war. There was also a reference to Rhett being the third husband, but neither of us could figure who the first husband was, or how Scarlet was Mellie’s sister. I knew that there was a big depot fire scene, but that had been during the war and I was wondering how they would work a flashback scene into the story. Then the penny dropped.

Read the rest of this entry »