How many prisoners were freed by the storming of the Bastille?

Actually, only seven. In France, 14th July, Bastille Day, is a national holiday and a glorious national symbol, equivalent to 4th July in the United States of America. From the rousing paintings of the scene, you might think hundreds of proud revolutionaries flooded into streets waving tricolours. In fact, only just over half a dozen people were being held at the time of the siege.The Bastille was stormed on 14th July 1789. Shortly afterwards ghoulish engravings of prisoners languishing in chains next to skeletons went on sale in the streets of Paris, forming the popular impression of the conditions there ever since.

Storming of Bastille fortress 

The world’s first video game

The world’s first video game, OXO, was invented in 1952. As the title suggests, it was simple tic-tac-toe, and you could only play it on the EDSAC computer at the University of Cambridge. (Watch it in action here.) The fun didn’t really get started until the late 1960′s, when Robert Baer, Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch developed a ping pong game you could play on your television. The video below shows Baer and Harrison playing the game on the “brown box” — the prototype for the computer consoles that would make the 70s and 80s such wonderful, sedentary decades to be a child.

The History of Poland in 10 minutes

This is an interesting short video about Polish history from Middle Ages to Modern Time. Well, personally I think it needs more than 10 minutes to get a bits of a country's history, but if you are looking for a starting point - you may enjoy!!

Here are some book recommendations:

The Long Trip to Botany Bay

Diabolical conditions abroad the hulks, the floating prisons which took up the slack when transportation to America ended, forced Britain to rethink its penal policy. The consensus was that Britain urgently needed another colony. First under consideration was the island of Lemane in the Gambia, West Africa. Its advantage was isolation. No guards would be needed to watch over the felons. But it would have amounted to signing the death warrant of the desperate souls abandoned there. Happily the scheme was dropped. Another African venue, this time Das Volatas Bay in the south-west, became favoured choice. But the survey commissioned in 1785 reported that it was a barren land. Without opportunity to hack a living out of the soil the convicts would surely die. The only route now open to the government was the one that led to Botany Bay, on the Tasman Sea south of Sydney, Australia. The doubters comforted themselves that the opportunities for convicts to return home from this colony would be scarce.

Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll of Plymouth taking leave of their lovers

Montezuma II - the last ruler of the Aztecs of Mexico

Montezuma II, the 9th huey tlatoani (great speaker) of the Aztecs of Mexico, came to power in 1502 at the time of both triumph and danger for the Aztec realm. The empire was larger then ever, and Montezuma himself was one of the most powerful and intriguing figures in its history. He changed the previous meritocratic system of social hierarchy and widened the divide between pipiltin (nobles) and  macehualtin (commoners) by prohibiting commoners from working in the royal palaces.

 Montezuma II

According to the astonished Spaniards who observed his lifestyle, thousands of servants, all nobles, provided vast meals on the gold plates; he wore new clothes every day; was entertained by dwarfs, freaks and his own zoo; and it was said that 150 of his wives were pregnant at the same time. More historically proved, he had eight daughters, including Doña, and Isabel Montezuma, and eleven sons, among them Chimalpopoca and Tlaltecatzin.

Elizabethan England

Many must have predicted a bleak future for England when the 22 year old princess Elizabeth succeeded her half sister Mary Tudor to the throne. The government was a disarray, and the treasury was empty. The circumstances of Elizabeth's birth to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn had placed her in the centre of controversy between Catholics and protestants who threatened at any moment to take up arms in the defense of their beliefs.

Elizabeth I (r.1558 - 1603)

Much of the credit for England's success during the last half of the century must go directly to her queen. Elizabeth was a handsome woman with a humanist education, a quick mind, and a strong will. Her approach to politics was decidedly Machiavellian. Although she ruled with a firm hand, she was known as Good Queen Bess to her subjects. Elizabeth never married. Her failure to provide an heir posed a serious threat for an England only two generations removed from civil war. On the other hand, her maidenhood was a valuable asset in diplomacy. What England could not gain by force or persuasion it often gained from men who sought Elizabeth's hand and her dowry of the English realm.

Queen Elizabeth I of England