THIS MONTH IN HISTORY

In the first half, we take ourselves to Shanghai in August 1937 and the forgotten battle for the city. We’ll see why Chiang Kai-shek decided to take a stand in Shanghai, making the Battle of Shanghai the first major clash between the Imperial Japanese forces and the Nationalist Chinese. Saturday shoppers strolling near the river suffer a tragic shock.

In the second half, we’re going to answer my seven-year-old son’s question: Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting on Earth? Da Vinci’s masterpiece only became the most famous painting in the world because of a couple of events 150 and 115 years ago…

This episode was first broadcast on 30 August 2016  on Noreen Mir’s 1-2-3 Show, RTHK Radio 3. Click ‘Subscribe’ to receive future podcasts automatically (or see the This Month in History website). Each month, Paul Letters examines events from this month in history. Recorded at Radio Television Hong Kong Studios, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Paul Letters is a historian, journalist, educator and novelist. See paulletters.com for more history, including a daily ‘On-This-Day-75-Years-Ago’ Twitter feed and photographs. Plus the novel that combines: the real history of the Allies’ first strike against Nazi Germany; Paul’s granny’s escape (as a teenager) from 1939 Poland to 1940 Paris to wartime London; the ‘Double-Cross System’, the Special Operations Executive and assassination in Prague (aChanceKill.com).

Podcast cover work by Gill Bertram.

Chiang Kaishek and Winston Churchill in 1940: Churchill the Appeaser and Chiang the Artful?

Also, we ask what is it about Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech that makes it so good? And we mention probably the greatest oratory on race delivered since the “I have a dream” speech

And, seamlessly(!), we celebrate the birthday of probably the world’s best clothing-related invention.

This episode was first broadcast on  28 August 2015  on Noreen Mir’s 1-2-3 Show, RTHK Radio 3. Click ‘Subscribe’ to receive future podcasts automatically (or see the This Month in History website). Each month, Paul Letters examines events from this month in history. Recorded at Radio Television Hong Kong Studios, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Paul Letters is a historian, journalist, educator and novelist. See paulletters.com for more history, including a daily ‘On-This-Day-75-Years-Ago’ Twitter feed and photographs. Plus the novel that combines: the real history of the Allies’ first strike against Nazi Germany; Paul’s granny’s escape (as a teenager) from 1939 Poland to 1940 Paris to wartime London; the ‘Double-Cross System’, the Special Operations Executive and assassination in Prague (aChanceKill.com).

Podcast cover work by Gill Bertram.

Why did Churchill appease the Japanese in 1940 and close the Burma Road?

How did a punk band, a writer and God end communism in Eastern Europe?

We look the great Amelia Earhart, whose aircraft disappeared over the Pacific on July 2nd 1937 – and now the hunt is back on to find her.

This episode was first broadcast on 2 July 2015 on Noreen Mir’s 1-2-3 Show, RTHK Radio 3. Click ‘Subscribe’ to receive future podcasts automatically (or see the This Month in History website). Each month, Paul Letters examines events from this month in history. Recorded at Radio Television Hong Kong Studios, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Paul Letters is a historian, journalist, educator and novelist. See paulletters.com for more history, including a daily ‘On-This-Day-75-Years-Ago’ Twitter feed and photographs. Plus the novel that combines: the real history of the Allies’ first strike against Nazi Germany; Paul’s granny’s escape (as a teenager) from 1939 Poland to 1940 Paris to wartime London; the ‘Double-Cross System’, the Special Operations Executive and assassination in Prague (aChanceKill.com).

Podcast cover work by Gill Bertram.

Join us for a trip through June 1940 and June 1950. Get to know the Norwegian whose treachery added his name to the dictionary in at least five European languages. Find out why Mussolini waited until June to join in the war and why that delay helped my Polish grandmother to escape. Join us – and my gran – in Paris when it is declared an ‘open city’ in June 1940.

In June 1940 Japan appeared to have its hands full fighting China, so why did it choose now to add to its enemies in Asia? And why did the US decide in June 1940 to move most of its fleet to Pearl Harbor? The answer to both of these questions lies in Amsterdam as much as Paris.

Also, this month: what made North Korea think it could get away with invading the South in June 1950? The story involves British communist spies and the loose words of an American Secretary of State.

And listen out for the Donald Duck/Alcoholics Anonymous connection…

This episode was first broadcast on 10 June 2015 on Noreen Mir’s 1-2-3 Show, RTHK Radio 3. Click ‘Subscribe’ to receive future podcasts automatically (or see the This Month in History website). Each month, Paul Letters examines events from this month in history. Recorded at Radio Television Hong Kong Studios, Broadcast Drive, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Paul Letters is a historian, journalist, educator and novelist. See paulletters.com for more history, including a daily ‘On-This-Day-75-Years-Ago’ Twitter feed and photographs. Plus the novel that combines: the real history of the Allies’ first strike against Nazi Germany; Paul’s granny’s escape (as a teenager) from 1939 Poland to 1940 Paris to wartime London; the ‘Double-Cross System’, the Special Operations Executive and assassination in Prague (aChanceKill.com).

Podcast cover work by Gill Bertram.