Florence Nightingale is one of Britain’s most recognisable names. The Victorian nursing pioneer and statistician left an indelible mark on the world of medicine. The first woman ever to be featured on a British banknote, her influence is such that 200 years after her birth, the emergency hospitals created for the coronavirus pandemic in the … Continue reading “Florence Nightingale: Nursing Pioneer”
2020 is Florence Nightingale’s bicentenary. After she and a team of nurses managed to significantly reduce the death count by improving the appallingly unsanitary conditions at a British hospital during the Crimean War, she became an authority on public sanitation issues. She also earned a reputation for her statistician’s skills, and her charts would influence … Continue reading “Florence Nightingale”
NASA is marking the fiftieth anniversary of the first Moon landings. Fifty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, and 47 years after the end of the Apollo program, the U.S. space agency is preparing to go back to Moon by 2024. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin boarded the … Continue reading “Landing on the Moon”
A new documentary film by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson brings the soldiers in the First World War to life to commemorate the centenary of the Armistice. The First World War was the first major conflict after the invention of film cameras. To mark the centenary of the end of the War on … Continue reading “They Shall Not Grow Old”
A new film, First Man, released a few months before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landings gives an opportunity to look back at a discreet man who marked 20th century history. This B1+-B2 resource about Neil Armstrong’s mission offers an insight into the race to the Moon. Not only does it focus … Continue reading “First Man”
How do you make a biopic about one of the most famous men of the twentieth century but who was famously private and discreet? There can be few people on the planet who don’t know who Neil Armstrong was, or rather what he did. But do many of us even know what the astronaut looked … Continue reading “Filming “First Man””
One year ago, on April 3 2016, Joseph Medicine Crow died at age 102. He was the last Plains Indians war chief. But he was also, through his grandfather, the last direct oral witness about the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Medicine crow was a very special person, a symbol for all Native … Continue reading “Medicine Crow, the Last Plains Indians War Chief”
21 September is Peace One Day, a U.N. day of ceasefire and non-violence around the world. A day to bring peace into your classroom! On the Peace One Day website, you can find teaching packs in English (and also Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish if your colleagues would like to join in!) They include … Continue reading “Peace One Day Webpicks”
