FREE HIVE MIND: Have Your Say!
Share your passion for history...
One of my favourite things about posting these articles is seeing the comments you leave.
I thought it might be fun to get the conversation really going on those threads and so I plan to stick questions out where you can share your love of history and the things that interest you…
Let’s start with HISTORY’S MOST MEMORABLE DOUBLE ACT (in 150 words or less)
It can be a President and his right hand man, a soldier and his Chief of Staff, a King and Queen, but you can interpret “best” any way you like. Do you love a pair because they were incompetent and hilarious, or because they made a dynamite pairing in old films? Your pitch can be as serious, or sarcastic, or as funny as you like…
My chosen double act are like marmite depending on your origins. They warrant a crown for their political competence, even if it led to sh*tty consequences for others. They needed a papal dispensation to link up because they were ever so slightly related, but Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castille do mark the unification of Spain in 1479. Unfortunately they also instigated the Spanish Inquisition, tortured and burned all the Jews they didn’t manage to run out of their country, and sent Christopher Columbus to the Americas, where Spain became the first European power to attempt the removal and exploitation of indigenous people from their land.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the ginger misogynist on the English throne waited until his in-laws were both dead before he lost his mind and started wronging Catherine of Aragon. They were scary. The portrait imagines their facial expressions pointed at England by about 1530.
Either way, they give a lot of history nerds a lot to talk about.
Ooh you tapped into my space nerdery! And gave me an idea for an article! That’s a good shout
My most memorable double act are Neil and Buzz. They could not have been less alike in demeanour. Buzz very conscious of the immensity of what they were doing, Neil essentially ever the pilot/engineer wanted to get the job done. Their professional partnership guided Eagle for 13 minutes from lunar orbit to touchdown, overcoming two significant alarms (the famous 1201 and 1202 warnings). Neil observing that the project landing site was strewn with rocks, flies Eagle manually, Buzz calling out distance and drop rate. Team work. Neil, the First Man, spends the rest of his life quietly dealing with being NEIL ARMSTRONG! Buzz has demons to deal with but comes out clean on the other side. Armstrong is reported to have said he never understood the fuss about walking on the moon. It is claimed he said the clever bit was landing on the moon. (I was hooked at 7yrs old, still am.)