This documentary is so good, it’s SO GOOD. I’ll let the description speak for itself:
Part one: “director Donald Brittain chronicles the early years of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and René Lévesque. From their university days in the 1950s to 1967 when Lévesque left the Liberal Party and Trudeau became the federal Minister of Justice, Brittain attempts to get at the heart of what makes these men so fascinating.”
Part two: “covers the years between 1967 and 1977, a colourful decade that saw Trudeau win three federal elections, the 1970 October Crisis and the sweeping rise to power of the Parti Québécois.”
Part three: “spans the decade between 1976 and 1986. The film reveals the turbulent, behind-the-scenes drama during the Quebec referendum and the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution. In doing so, it also traces both Trudeau’s and Lévesque’s fall from power.”
The film is from, of course, The National Film Board
Isn’t there something striking about the look the woman is giving in this portait? This is the artist Anne Forbes as painted by David Allan. Allan is often compared to Hogarth, and I was looking up paintings by him, but when I saw this one it made me look up Anne’s story and her paintings.
The Mill and The Cross: How great does this look? A moving painting, detailed, haunting.
The Old Bailey, online. Try to picture the staggering amount of information on this site:
“The Old Bailey Proceedings Online makes available a fully searchable, digitised collection of all surviving editions of the Old Bailey Proceedings from 1674 to 1913, and of the Ordinary of Newgate’s Accounts between 1676 and 1772. It allows access to over 197,000 trials and biographical details of approximately 2,500 men and women executed at Tyburn, free of charge for non-commercial use.”
On top of this, there is a great amount of general information, from who lived in London and when and what the different communities were like, what types of punishments were common… just click on the ‘historical background’ link and get into it.
War of 1812 →
Speaking of battles, this PBS production from earlier this year is one of the best I’ve seen on 1812, it’s very fair to all viewpoints.
Peter Watkins' Culloden →
This film is (currently anyway) playing on Netflix. For 1964, it’s pretty novel I think, being shot like a modern news documentary with interviews and commentary by the participants. This event has captured my interest since a long time ago.
Ma Galerie A Paris - a French blog that collects many gorgeous illustrations by different artists.
Curio Books is a company that sells old picture books, but the publish several scans of the books as they go on sale as well, so it’s a real treasure trove! If you like an image, save it, because once the book is sold the images go down. This fighting picture is one of my favorite finds from there, I love it!
I’ve been watching a load of Edwardian Farm so it was a treat to find a program that inspired it, The Victorian Kitchen Garden. Old news to British folks no doubt, but new to me! This sort of show reminds me of my dad.
Medievalists Dot Net →
A collection of everything Medieval! Articles, videos, more! Excellent stuff.
At Swords’ Point: Humor As Weapon →
Inspiring! I’ve seen so, so many of those old cartoons where the joke is a woman as a stupid secretary, shrill wife, terrible driver, etc. I cannot imagine being a lady cartoonist going against those entrenched norms in a profession dominated by men, thank you Comics Journal for the profile on this thoughtful lady and her work!
Someday I’m going to make a whole post about Anton, one of my favorite cartoonists of all time.
From the Open University: “ Voiced by Clive Anderson, this entertaining romp through ‘The History of English’ squeezes 1600 years of history into 10 one-minute bites”
Library of Congress →
What you can find in here will amaze you, but like many library collections online it can be a bit of a slog to go through! Unless you love that sort of thing, which you do.
I have gone back to this site from time to time, excellent photographs.