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Punt PI
''Punt PI'' is a fact-based comedy radio series on BBC Radio 4 in which Steve Punt investigates mysteries in Britain. Format Each episode is 30 minutes long and there are three or four episodes in each series. Starting with series two, every episode starts with a ringing phone and then the answering machine of "Punt's Private Eye". A mysterious individual identified only as 'Tracy' then speaks into the answering machine and asks Punt to investigate a mystery he has heard about. All episodes follow a similar format of Steve Punt introducing the mystery, before heading off to speak to witnesses and experts, and investigating different theories and leads. Episodes Series 1 (May 2008) #A couple who found 400 false legs hidden under their floorboards #Britain's Strategic steam reserve #Numerous aeroplane crashes at Dark Peak in the Peak District Series 2 (June 2009) #Adolf Hitler's plans for a headquarters in Balham, South West London, possibly at Du Cane Court #Television licence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Grindell Matthews
Harry Grindell Matthews (17 March 1880 – 11 September 1941) was an English inventor who claimed to have invented a death ray in the 1920s. Earlier life and inventions Harry Grindell Matthews was born on 17 March 1880 in Winterbourne, Gloucestershire. He studied at the Merchant Venturers' School in Bristol and became an electronic engineer. During the Second Boer War he served in the South African Constabulary and was twice wounded. In 1911 Matthews said he had invented an Aerophone device, a radiotelephone, and transmitted messages between a ground station and an aeroplane from a distance of two miles. His experiments attracted government attention and on 4 July 1912 he visited Buckingham Palace. However, when the British Admiralty requested a demonstration of the Aerophone, Matthews demanded that no experts be present at the scene. When four of the observers dismantled part of the apparatus before the demonstration began and took notes, Matthews cancelled the demonstratio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Desmond Taylor
William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner, 26 April 1872 – 1 February 1922) was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Hollywood motion picture colony of the 1910s and early 1920s, Taylor directed fifty-nine silent films between 1914 and 1922 and acted in twenty-seven between 1913 and 1915. Taylor's murder on 1 February 1922, along with other Hollywood scandals such as the Roscoe Arbuckle trial, led to a frenzy of sensationalist and often fabricated newspaper reports.''Taylorology'' (newsheet) September 2003; retrieved 6 January 2008. The murder remains an official . Early life William Cunningham Deane-Tanner wa ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Who Put Bella In The Wych Elm?
"Who put Bella down the Wych Elm?" is graffiti that appeared in 1944 following the 1943 discovery by four children of the skeletonised remains of a woman inside a wych elm in Hagley Wood, Hagley (located in the estate of Hagley Hall), in Worcestershire, England. The victim—whose murder is estimated to have occurred in 1941—remains unidentified, and the current location of her skeleton and autopsy report is unknown. Discovery On 18 April 1943, four local boys (Robert Hart, Thomas Willetts, Bob Farmer and Fred Payne) were poaching or bird–nesting in Hagley Wood, part of the Hagley estate belonging to Lord Cobham near Wychbury Hill when they came across a large wych elm. Thinking the location to be a particularly good place to search for birds' nests, Farmer attempted to climb the tree to investigate. As he climbed, he glanced down into the hollow trunk and discovered a skull. At first he believed it to be that of an animal, but after seeing human hair and teeth, he realis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Grayson
Albert Victor Grayson (born 5 September 1881, disappeared 28 September 1920) was an English socialist politician of the early 20th century. An Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, Grayson is most notable for his sensational by-election victory at Colne Valley, and unexplained disappearance in 1920. Early years Albert Victor Grayson was born in Liverpool, the seventh son of William Grayson, a Yorkshire carpenter, and Elizabeth Craig, who was Scottish."Mystery of Left's maverick", Nally, Michael. ''The Observer'' ondon (UK)30 August 1981: 4. He became an apprentice engineer in Bootle. Grayson joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and toured the country giving lectures, becoming a well-known orator despite having a stammer. In 1907 he stood as an ILP candidate in the 1907 Colne Valley by-election, having been nominated by the Colne Valley Labour League; he won a sensational, albeit narrow, victory. Grayson was paid an allowance by the ILP but refuse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baker Street Robbery
The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safety deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, on the night of 11 September 1971. A gang tunnelled from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault. The value of the property stolen is unknown, but is likely to have been between £1.25 and £3 million; only £231,000 was recovered by the police. The burglary was planned by Anthony Gavin, a career criminal, who was inspired by "The Red-Headed League", a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle in which Sherlock Holmes waits in a bank vault to arrest a gang who have tunnelled in through the floor. Gavin and his colleagues rented Le Sac, a leather goods shop two doors from the bank, and tunnelled during weekends. The interior of the vault was mapped out by one gang member using an umbrella and the span of his arms to measure the dimensions and location of the furniture. The gang initially tried to use a jack to force a hole in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Loewenstein
Alfred Léonard Loewenstein (11 March 1877 – 4 July 1928) was a Belgian financier. At his peak in the 1920s, Loewenstein was worth around £12 million in the currency of the time (equivalent to £ million in ), making him the third-richest person in the world at the time. His wealth came from investments in electric power and artificial silk businesses when those industries were in their infancy. Loewenstein is remembered today for his mysterious disappearance and death in 1928. Early life and business career Alfred Loewenstein was born to Bernard Loewenstein, a German-Jewish banker in Brussels, Belgium, who converted to Catholicism. Alfred established his own banking concern, and was a wealthy man by 1914. Loewenstein offered his government in exile US$50 million, interest-free, to stabilize the Belgian currency in return for the right to print Belgian francs. The offer was refused. At war's end, he maintained a residence in England where he ran an investment business ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest Of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east. The area is characterised by more than of mixed woodland, one of the surviving ancient woodlands in England. A large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as the second largest crown forest in England, after the New Forest. Although the name is used loosely to refer to the part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, the Forest of Dean proper has covered a much smaller area since the Middle Ages. In 1327, it was defined to cover only the royal demesne and parts of parishes within the hundred of St Briavels, and after 1668 comprised the royal demesne only. The Forest proper is within the civil parishes of West Dean, Lydbrook, Cin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Walton (murder Victim)
Charles Walton (12 May 1870 – 14 February 1945) was an English man who was found murdered on the evening of 14 February 1945 ( St. Valentine's Day), at The Firs farm on the slopes of Meon Hill, Lower Quinton in Warwickshire, England. The case is notable as the foremost police detective of the era, Chief Inspector Robert Fabian, led the investigation into Walton's death. The chief suspect for the murder was the manager of The Firs, Alfred John Potter, for whom Walton was working on the day he died. However, there was insufficient evidence to convict Potter and the case is currently the oldest unsolved murder in the Warwickshire Constabulary records. The case has earned some notoriety in popular culture due to its supposed connection with the local belief in witchcraft. Background Charles Walton was born 12 May 1870 to Charles and Emma Walton.''1871 England Census'' An agricultural worker, he had lived in Lower Quinton all his life. He was a widower who shared a small cottage, 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hollinwell Incident
The Hollinwell incident refers to an unexplained event in July 1980 when around 300 children suffered fainting attacks, nausea and other symptoms. The incident happened at the Hollinwell Showground in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, in Nottinghamshire, England, and the exact cause has never been determined. The two leading theories relate to mass hysteria and the use of pesticides in nearby fields. Background In 1980, the Hollinwell Show, an annual event at the Hollinwell Showground near Kirkby-in-Ashfield, took place on Sunday 13 July. As part of the event the Forest League of Juvenile Jazz Bands decided to hold a charity show, creating a Junior Brass and Marching Band competition, with entrants coming from across the East Midlands. Around 500 children from 11 marching bands were in attendance, many of them brought-in by coaches from up to away. With the show scheduled to begin at 9am, many of the children were tired from their journeys and nervous about performing. The incident At around 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cantelo
William Cantelo (born 1830) was a 19th-century British inventor. Credited with developing an early machine gun, he disappeared from his home in Southampton in the 1880s. While trying to find Cantelo, his two sons saw a photograph of American-born inventor Hiram Maxim (born 1840), creator of the Maxim gun; his superficial similarity to their father led them to believe that he had re-emerged under a new name. Background Cantelo was born in 1830 at Newport on the Isle of Wight to parents Elizabeth and William Cantelo. His father was a publican and brush maker. His brother, John, and one of his sisters, Ellen, were artists. Cantelo became an engineer and, in the 1870s, owned a shop on French Street in Southampton and a yard in Northam, employing up to 40 people. He was also the landlord of the Old Tower Inn at the end of Bargate Street which derived its name from the Arundel Tower against which it was built. Beneath the pub was a tunnel where Cantelo spent much of his time, turni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roanoke Colony
The establishment of the Roanoke Colony ( ) was an attempt by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. The English, led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had briefly claimed St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1583 as the first English territory in North America at the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, but Gilbert was lost at sea on his return journey to England. Roanoke colony was founded by governor Ralph Lane in 1585 on Roanoke Island in what is now Dare County, North Carolina, United States. Lane's colony was troubled by a lack of supplies and poor relations with the local Native Americans. While awaiting a delayed resupply mission by Sir Richard Grenville, Lane abandoned the colony and returned to England with Sir Francis Drake in 1586. Grenville arrived two weeks later and also returned home, leaving behind a small detachment to protect Raleigh's claim. Following the failure of the 1585 settlement, a second expedition, led by Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
