History Challenge & Journal

[Jimbob]

Mrs.Thatcher and her handbag

I thought Thatcher's handbag was called Denis?

Gladstone was famous for walking the streets at night out to save 'fallen women'. He would be busy today in Bangkok

[dtaai-maai]

Gladstone was famous for walking the streets at night out to save 'fallen women'. He would be busy today in Bangkok

According to what I've read that should be "... to 'save' fallen women..."

[migrant]

What did he save them for?

[Dannie Boy]

What did he save them for?

For his Cabinet colleagues?

[Bristolian]

I knew that he kept an old bag at home but had no idea that he saved fallen women!

[dtaai-maai]

history.jpg (14.98 KiB) Viewed 368 times

This German lady was a wife, mother, entrepreneur and the driving force behind a famous man. She was made a senator of sorts shortly before her death at a ripe old age. She achieved a notable first.

Who was she and what was she the first to do?

[Bristolian]

Probably Berta Benz but what did she do? Probably drive from A to B as a first, but that's only a guess, I would need to check.

[dtaai-maai]

Jings, I thought it would be more difficult than that!

Spot on, Bristolian. She was the first person to drive a car over a substantial distance - 106 kms from Mannheim to Pforzheim.

On 5 August 1888, without telling her husband and without permission of the authorities, Benz drove with her sons Richard and Eugen, thirteen and fifteen years old, in one of the newly constructed Patent Motorwagen automobiles—from Mannheim to Pforzheim—becoming the first person to drive an automobile over a real distance. Motorized drives before this historic trip were merely very short trial drives, returning to the point of origin, made with mechanical assistants. This pioneering tour had a one-way distance of about 106 km (66 mi).[3]

Although the ostensible purpose of the trip was to visit her mother, Bertha Benz had other motives: to prove to her husband—who had failed to consider marketing his invention adequately—that the automobile they both heavily invested in would become a financial success once it was shown to be useful to the general public; and to give her husband the confidence that his constructions had a future

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_Benz

[Bristolian]

Unfortunately, for you, I work for a large German company and we use Mecedes Finance for large deals. On one of the many visits I made to their HQ I was given a book of the Mercedes Benze company ( fortunately in English). I have not seen the book for many years and it's probably in my UK home....however I did read it.

My thoughts on the notable first was a drive across the country but thought safer to stick with A-B and let someone else finish.

Sorry!

[Bristolian]

Not a vagabond but that's how I was known
I was a thinker ahead of my time but my peers shunned my ideas
If that were not bad enough, our foes, like a flash, adopted them and used them to everyone's surprise.
I was forgotten for many years but found again, as my brilliance was finally recognised, by a man of our times, Once more I was needed in our darkest hours.

Use Google or any other resource. Ask away!

[dtaai-maai]

British or another European nation?
15th century or earlier?

Presumably he travelled alone, far and wide - to Persia/Middle East?

"Like a flash" - gunpowder?

Our darkest hours - World War 1 and 2? Or is it more literal, as in the absence of light/power?

[Bristolian]

British
Much later than 15th century
Like a Flash...yes but not only gunpowder gives a flash

WW 1 or 2 ......yes

[dtaai-maai]

So... ahead of his time, but not by much.

Was it just his ideas that were used in our darkest times or was he still around to realise them?

Something to do with the atom bomb, at first guess.

[Bristolian]

He was around to realise his ideas after the intervention of a man of our times

Nothing to do with A bomb. Much more conventional but radical in WW1 and only became commonplace and commonly known in WW2

[dtaai-maai]

We're not talking about Churchill, are we?