A British sentry is photographed here in the lead-up to the Battle of the Somme. Seen on the 28th of June, 1916 – three days before the months-long battle began – he watches from outside Café Jordan, Mailly Maillet, France.
The photographer was Ernest Brooks, a Englishman most famous for his work in the First World War.
Posts I scheduled but never actually finished writing have been posting. Sorry about that!
This image is of the British Army preparing mortar ammunition in Acheux, France for the infamous Battle of the Somme in the First World War. The image is dated the 28th of June, 1916, while the battle began on the 1st of July, resulting in over a million casualties (about one third of the soldiers who fought).
The battle concluded on the 18th of November.
28th June 1916: British troops near Doullens, France head to the front to begin the Battle of the Somme.
This infamous First World War battle claimed the lives of about a third of the three million soldiers who fought from the start of July until mid-November.
27th June 1951: The United States Navy fleet oiler, USS Manatee (left) refuels the Royal Australian Navy destroyer, HMAS Warramunga (right) off the Korean Peninsula during the Korean War.
Newlay & Horsforth station in West Yorkshire photographed on the 26th of June, 1964. The line was later electrified, but this station closed the year after the pictures were taken.
The aftermath of the disaster, photographed in 1999.
Human settlement on the Caribbean island and British Overseas Territory of Montserrat was changed forever on the 25th of June, 1997. Following a couple of years of volcanic activity, on this day a series of pyroclastic flows and lahars (mudslides or debris flows) devastated the capital, Plymouth.
Residents of Plymouth and other settlements had been evacuated some time earlier, but had moved back when the disaster occurred. Nineteen people died before residents were evacuated again – this time permanently.
Today Plymouth is a ghost town. Following the disaster more than two-thirds of the island’s population left. Most did not return.
Mayor James Sharpe, his wife Edie, and Chief Earl Hill pose in front of the plaque in Centennial Park on the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Deseronto, Ontario, Canada. 19th June 1971. The Sharpes wear 1870s clothing for the occasion.
Deseronto is named after Captain John Deseronto, a native Mohawk leader and a captain in the British Military Forces during the American Revolutionary War.
As Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. X
The weekend brought news of the death of Australian-born star of Britain’s Royal Ballet, Errol Pickford. After years in London he moved back to Perth to dance with the West Australian Ballet.
He was only fifty-one at the time of his death.
As the Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty.
Pickford was known for his powerful dancing, and was famous for his performances in The Sleeping Beauty and Don Quixote.
In Times Gone By... 
