Battle of Sluys

Battle of Sluys.
The Battle of Sluys was a naval battle fought on 24 June 1340 between England and France, in the roadstead of the since silted-up port of Sluys. The English fleet of 120–150 ships was led by Edward III of England and the 230-strong French fleet by Hugues Quiéret, Admiral of France, and Nicolas Béhuchet, Constable of France. It was one of the opening engagements of the Hundred Years' War. Edward sailed on 22 June and encountered the French the next day; they had bound their ships into three lines, forming large floating fighting platforms. The English were able to manoeuvre against the French and defeat them in detail. Most of the French ships were captured, and they lost 16,000–20,000 men killed, against 400–600 for the English. The English were unable to take strategic advantage, barely interrupting French raids on English territories and shipping. Operationally the battle allowed the English army to land and to then besiege the French town of Tournai, albeit unsuccessfully.

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John FitzWalter, 2nd Baron FitzWalter

John FitzWalter, 2nd Baron FitzWalter.
John FitzWalter, 2nd Baron FitzWalter (c. 1315 – 1361), was a prominent Essex landowner who waged an armed campaign against the neighbouring town of Colchester. With connections to the powerful de Clare family, who had arrived in England at the time of the Norman conquest, the FitzWalter family was of a noble and ancient lineage. They held estates across Essex, as well as properties in London and Norfolk. John FitzWalter played a prominent role during the early years of King Edward III's wars in France. FitzWalter's dispute with Colchester was exacerbated when townsmen illegally entered his park in Lexden; in return, he banned them from one of their own watermills. In 1342, he ransacked Colchester, destroyed its market, and besieged the town, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. In 1351, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Marshalsea. He languished in the Tower of London for over a year until the king agreed to pardon him.

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Randall Davidson

Randall Davidson.
Randall Davidson (1848–1930) was an Anglican priest who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1928. Conciliatory by nature, he spent much of his term of office striving to keep the Church together in the face of deep and sometimes acrimonious divisions between evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics. Under his leadership the Church gained some independence from state control, but his efforts to modernise the Book of Common Prayer were frustrated by Parliament. Though cautious about bringing the Church into domestic party politics, Davidson did not shy away from larger political issues. He urged moderation on both sides in the conflict over Irish independence and campaigned against immoral methods of warfare in the First World War. He played a key role in the passage of the Parliament Act 1911 and led efforts to resolve the 1926 General Strike. He was the longest-serving Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation, and also the first to retire from the office.

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High Explosive Research

High Explosive Research.
High Explosive Research was the independent British project to develop atomic bombs after the Second World War. The decision to undertake it was made in 1947 and publicly announced in 1948. The project was a civil, not a military, one. Production facilities were constructed under the direction of Christopher Hinton, including a uranium metal plant at Springfields, nuclear reactors and a plutonium processing plant at Windscale, and a gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment facility at Capenhurst, near Chester. The first nuclear reactor in the UK went critical at Harwell on 15 August 1947. William Penney directed bomb design from Fort Halstead, and later Aldermaston in Berkshire. The first British atomic bomb was successfully tested in Operation Hurricane (pictured) off the Monte Bello Islands in Australia on 3 October 1952. Britain thereby became the third country to test nuclear weapons. The project concluded with the delivery of the first Blue Danube atomic bombs to Bomber Command in 1953.