July 4! 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. A busy fireworks night beckons

July 4, America's biggest fireworks night, draws on apace and my book 'A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day' (Reaktion Books) is drawn on heavily in this article for the American educational magazine 'Science World'. This year being the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the displays will probably be bigger than ever.

I-spy Paris. Montmartre Cemetery highlights

Montmartre Cemetery is Paris's 3rd biggest. This is the last resting place of Emile Zola, Stendhal, Degas, Pierre Cardin, Jeanne Moreau, Francois Truffaut, Berlioz, Delibes, Offenbach, Theophile Gautier, Can-can dancer La Goulue, Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, among other big names. 

But the prize for the grave with most flowers must go to the singer Dalida, Egyptian-born, of Italian descent and France's biggest selling recording artist from 1957 to 1961.

Thank you Boundless! History of assassination talk

Great to talk to people from the Boundless organisation last night about 'Assassins' Deeds', my history of assassination. It featured the famous ones - Julius Caesar, Good King Wenceslas, Thomas Becket, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Abraham Lincoln, JFK. But also the less well know, such as the only British prime minister to be murdered.

Then there were the weird ones - the booby trapped statuette, the assassination dressed up as a tv reality show, the killer disguised as a bear. And the ones that got away - Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Fidel Castro (more than 600 times), Adolf Hitler. Some good questions at the end too - which assassination would I have most liked to prevent, which assassin was the most misunderstood?

https://www.boundless.co.uk/events/online-events/a-history-of-assassination-from-ancient-egypt-to-the-present-day

I-Spy Cascais: a memorial to four of Portugal's wars

Cascais is a charming historic town along the Tagus estuary from Lisbon. Its war memorial, pictured above, commemorates four of Portugal's wars.

First, the War of Roussillon and Catalonia (1793-5) when, following the French Revolution, they landed troops in Catalonia to join up with Spanish forces and tried to attack France in the Pyrenees. It did not go well.

 The second was the Peninsular War (1808-14) in which British troops joined the Portuguese and Spaniards to drive out the French who had occupied the Iberian Peninsula. The war turned the tide against Napoleon in Western Europe and made the reputation of the Duke of Wellington, who went on to become the victor of Waterloo.

The third commemoration is of a Portuguese auxiliary division that fought in one of Spain's civil wars in 1837.

And the fourth is the First World War, or Great War (1914-18). Portugal had been Britain's ally since 1377, but approached the conflict cautiously. It had been hoping to remain neutral, but there were clashes in Africa where German South-west Africa bordered Portuguese Angola. 

Britain was at the time Portugal's most important overseas market, and when German U-boats tried to impose a blockade, Portugal seized German ships in its ports, so in 1916 Germany declared war. More than 12,000 Portuguese servicemen were killed in the conflict.

Media careers, centenarians, assassination, disasters all feature in my Bandwidth podcast

My conversation with Katie Brewer of Bandwidth is now available. 

We talk about getting into Oxford from an ordinary Manchester primary school, getting into the media and working in radio and television.

Then there are my books: we discuss the secrets of living to 100 and whether, in spite of increased life expectancy and determined scientific research, there remains a limit to human lifespan. There's the history of assassination, and the role of love in the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand which helped to spark the First World War, plus the continuing mysteries surrounding JFK's death. 

We talked about how disasters happen and how mercilessly they can expose organisational shortcomings.

The podcast is entitled: 'Surviving the Storm: John Withington on Catastrophe, Longevity and the Human Spirit.' You can find it here on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/68HQDGsIC4vKBG6Xsw9up9?si=cefbc5dfc9354602&nd=1&dlsi=29cbb59e41194b1f

And I'm told also on @bandwidthconversations on Instagram & @podcastbwc on Twitter

My Fireworks History: a talk and a quote

Great fun to give a talk to the CSNA, Camden Square Neighbourhood Association, in London last night about my book 'A History of Fireworks' (Reaktion). Told the story of their origins, the ambivalent attitude to the authorities in the UK to Bonfire Night, and in the USA to 4 July, how the technology changed, and their place in art, literature and music, their effect on animals, and much more. Good audience with interesting questions.

Meanwhile, the book's also been quoted in this Encyclopaedia Britannica article https://www.britannica.com/procon/fireworks-debate

The last Gorton by-election

Thursday sees the Gorton by-election in what was the safe Labour seat of Manchester Gorton and Denton. 

I was brought up in Gorton (East Manchester) and I was living there in 1967 at the time of another high profile by-election. (Though the constituency’s boundaries have been changed substantially since then.) 

The sitting MP was Konni Zilliacus, half-Finnish, who had worked for the League of Nations between the wars, was very much on the Labour left, and was dismissed as a ‘crypto-Communist’ by George Orwell. 

In July 1967, he died of leukemia. By the time the by-election was called for November, the Labour government was facing a sterling crisis largely because of Britain’s chronic balance of payments deficit, but Zilliacus had bequeathed his would-be successor Kenneth Marks, a former head teacher, a majority of nearly 8,000, having won more than 60 per cent of the vote at the 1966 general election.

Running for the Conservatives against Marks was Winston Churchill. No, not Britain’s wartime prime minister, but his grandson. Labour suffered an adverse swing of more than 14 per cent, but hung on to win by fewer than 600 votes.

In this week’s Gorton by-election, Labour are defending a majority of more than 12,500. In 2024, Reform was their nearest challenger. Turnout was well below 50 per cent.