You can’t miss the Utah Beach Museum. It’s right there, woven into the sand dunes that, along with the Germans, defended the shore in 1944. In fact it’s partially built on the remains of German bunkers. The History Utah beach was one the ‘extra’ beaches, added to...
The biggest surprise about the German military cemetery at La Cambe is its size – it is small (16.5 acres), given that 21,222 German soldiers are buried here. That’s much smaller than the American Cemetery at Colville (172.5 acres), which has 9,380 graves. The reason is that,...
The Royal Navy Submarine Museum is one of the two satellite sites of the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) on the other side of Portsmouth harbour. For that reason, it maybe doesn’t get as much attention as the ships and other museum attractions in the...
The H.L. Hunley was the world’s first combat submarine to sink a ship. In the quiet of the night on 17th Feb 1864, eight men from the Confederate Army gathered on the beach on Sullivan’s Island outside Charleston, South Carolina. Wading into the sea, they climbed on...
Pointe du Hoc is the famous cliff promontory at the western edge of Omaha beach, that was heroically scaled and overrun by US Rangers on the morning of D-Day, June 6th 1944. Now it is a battlefield and memorial site. The History D-Day planners were particularly worried...
This month, FCA Italy, the Turin-based subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, finished converting a former 15,000 m2 workspace at their Mirafiori manufacturing plant into a home for 250 historic Fiat, Lancia and Abarth cars. Some of the cars have been arranged into specific themes. Each theme displays...
The Mary Rose is one of Britain’s most important historic artefacts and should be on everyone’s ‘Must See’ list. When she sank into the silt of the Solent almost five centuries ago (474 yrs), she became a Tudor time capsule containing the personal effects, weapons, tools, clothing,...
The Overlord Museum is one of the primary museums on the Normandy coast and popular with visitors because it sits next door to the American Cemetery, which is pretty much a ‘must-see’ for most visitors to the area. It is not a large museum but it packs...
The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam (Het Scheepvaartmuseum) will open two brand new semi-permanent displays of its collection in May: Republic at Sea and Maps & Marvels. The museum’s Main Gallery will host Republic at Sea, which will display paintings, ship models, instruments, and weapons illustrating how...
The operational history of HMS Warrior 1860¹, the world’s first iron-hulled, armoured warship was both dull and brief, and that’s what makes her so interesting, because when launched she was, without question, the most powerful warship afloat. So how come she never distinguished herself in action? Well,...
HMS M33 is the smallest of the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN)’s museum ships and you’ll find her in her dry dock next to HMS Victory. She is significant because she is the last remaining ship from the Gallipoli campaign in WW1. History HMS M33...
Set back behind the Tudor bulk of Southsea Castle, just east of Portsmouth harbour, the D-Day Story Museum does what it says on the label – showcases the events leading up to the Allied invasion of France on June 6 1944, codenamed Operation Overlord. There’s been a...
Saturday 2nd March will mark 50 years since the maiden voyage of Concorde from Toulouse, south-west France. Concorde was manufactured jointly by French firm, Aerospatiale in Toulouse and the British Aircraft Corporation in Filton (near Bristol), but it was in Toulouse that Concorde 001 took to the...
The Atlanta History Center (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) has opened Cyclorama: The Big Picture, the fully restored The Battle of Atlanta cyclorama painting. The 360° cyclorama is one of the world’s largest oil paintings, standing 49 feet (14.9m) tall, stretching longer than a football field and weighing 10,000...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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