UK Time

Welcome to Brian's Timelines

Hi visitor...

This site is, amongst other things, the result of a lifetime's fanatical interest in if and when things happened.

One small thing before you get immersed... If you find my site interesting, informative or just plain fun, please do one of two things - either send me an eMail or submit the site or any page to "StumbleUpon", there are links for both in the menu on the left. You might even be so enthralled with some of the pages that you may do both...

By the way, the pages on this site have a double-click (on any word) dictionary look-up enabled.

My timelines are much more informative and interesting than your average timeline. For Example, most timelines are bare-bones type things and they record their entries thus...

2354 BC: Babylon: En Hedu'anna - the first female astronomer recorded in astronomical history.

Whereas you will see that a large proportion of my entries are recorded thus...

2354 BC: History tells us that female space exploration started with Valentina Tereshkova and her flight in Vostok6. Nothing could be further from the truth - this represented merely the first physical presence of a woman in space. However women have been involved in the study of the sky and all it contains for well over 4000 years. Around 2350 BC, one Sargon of Akkad - the founder of the Sargonian Dynasty in ancient Babylon - appointed his daughter En Hedu'anna as his chief priestess of the Moon Goddess. This was an incredibly powerful appointment, almost certainly second only to Sargon himself. Her priestly name means "ornament of heaven" - her birth name is unknown. She was authorised to create observatories to record the movement of the planets and the stars. The uses to which these observations were put, were of course, astrological in nature and used to forecast weather, rain crops etc... No matter that this was not pure astronomy they were observations of the cycles of the heavens.

If, perchance, you wish to link to my site please do. At the bottom of each major page there is a snippet of code, appropriate to that page which you can use to link to my site - please use it. It is important for ranking by the search engines that the link refers to the page title. If you wish a return link by the same reasoning, I will be happy to reciprocate.

Please note...

This site works best with Firefox

or Netscape

browsers. Firefox is unequivocally the best, and both it and Netscape are absolutely FREE. Opera is very close behind but bloody Internet Explorer FUBARs things up all over the place where positioning/sizing, is concerned (especially images).

If you...

...have an idea for a new time-line
...have found a mistake in one of the Timelines
...have an observation on a current Timeline
...have a Timeline you would like to submit for the site
YOU get the credit, complete with email and link (Plus photograph if you wish)
...would like to advertise on this website
...have a totally irrelevent question
...just want to indulge in inconsequential chat

...please mail me via the Contact form or the Webmaster link at the bottom of the page. I will truly be only too glad to hear from you for whatever reason.

A bit of philosophy...

It is said that imitation is the highest form of flattery. When this comes down to the written word another word is sometimes suggested - plagiarism. The dictionary tells us... plagiarism - a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work. I make no such claim as to the content of these timelines. To the best of my knowledge all data is public domain. The dictionary also gives us... research - the systematic investigation to establish facts or the accuracy of information. Here we have it. Where a Timeline involves a generic subject it is as a result of one of my interests or professional areas. During my working life I have been a photographer, a plastics technician and manager, and for the last 20 years of my working life (as at 2007) an IT consultant and database administrator. This accounts for three Timelines. Where the timelines concern a series of books (and/or films), I have read (and/or seen) them all; in some cases, many times over (LOTR - well over 50 times). Other timelines are as a result of a deep and abiding interest or hobby. Sure, if you search diligently you will find word patterns that indicate I have read a certain book or visited a certain website - so what? That is what research is about. I did, consciously, make the decision not to cite sources, except for materials developed since the advent of the World Wide Web - especially in any scientific discipline. Since this website is for fun and not a scholarly dissertation, I decided that in general, 'not to', was the correct decision - a fortiori, it would have made the whole bloody thing absurdly ponderous and difficult to read - i.e. plagued with footnotes, carefully marked quotes and cross-references, almost certainly resulting in loads of mistakes, with me being on the receiving end of irate eMails saying "he didn't say/write that, such-and-such a person did".

I thank all my sources whether hard copy or electronic; and, if you recognise a little of your own "fine hand" somewhere - please take it as a supreme compliment, as all it means is that I could not write it better myself. I confess that there are a few instances where I have used source material piecemeal, but there aren't many, or "not a lot" - as Paul Daniels would say. Certainly no amount that which would come anywhere near, never mind exceed, the unofficially official 10% "Fair Copy" copyright standard.

The Current State of my Timelines...

Astronomy: Proofed, and up-todate but this latter is a continuous process - titivation continues.
Cornwall: Text - 90% finished. Images - 60% finished. Proofing - 1 run out of 3 done.
Ireland: Text - 80% finished. Images - 0% finished. Proofing - 1 run out of 3 done.
Photography: Text - 80% finished. Images - 0% finished. Proofing - 1 run out of 3 done.
Richard Sharpe: All complete and proofed - E&OE (Or Bernard writing another book - hopefully).