Simon Jones
@simonjones.bsky.social
📤 6982
📥 2918
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Writes about the First World War. FRHistS. Late museum curator.
https://simonjoneshistorian.com/
#OTD
11 February 1918, children at a military-run school close to the front line in Thann, Alsace, France meet a veteran. They have M2 gas masks but they swamp their faces, an airtight fit would have been impossible. Source:
@lacontemporaine.bsky.social
argonnaute.parisnanterre.fr/ark:/14707/d...
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about 15 hours ago
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It turns out that I am also giving this talk on line TODAY 10 Febraury 2026 at 1930 GMT via Zoom (someone got their diary mixed up). I should be getting a link soon. DM me an email address if you'd like it.
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1 day ago
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#OTD
10 February 1918, a member of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps at a British Army bakery, Dieppe, France. Photo: David McLellan. Source:
www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...
1 day ago
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Simon Jones
Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦
2 days ago
PLEASE REPOST 🥺🙏 The Canadian Letters & Images Project is an online digital archive of Canadians’ experience during wartime at home & in battle. It contains thousands of personal letters & photos that reveal people’s experience through their own words & eyes.
www.canadianletters.ca/content/abou...
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Come to Leamington Spa for my talk 'Gas! Protection against chemical weapons during the Great War'. This Wednesday, 11 February 2026, 7.30pm. All welcome, £5 donation requested.
www.westernfrontassociation.com/branches/uni...
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2 days ago
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#OTD
#WW1
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2 days ago
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The most perfect thread on Bluesky ever.
add a skeleton here at some point
3 days ago
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Something on Bluesky has just reminded me of the human haemorrhoid's greatest utterance.
add a skeleton here at some point
3 days ago
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Late surprise favourite to win the Winter Olympics biathlon in Bolzano.
3 days ago
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Hello Noel and Vee, how have you been?
4 days ago
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I’ve just read ‘Trilby’, George du Maurier’s hugely successful & influential novel of 1894, from which we get the term ‘Svengali’ for one who controls & manipulates the talent of another, & of course Svengali turns out to be a Jewish caricature & the whole concept of the book overtly anti-Semitic.
4 days ago
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Here’s some excellent film of French tunnelling operations, apparently January 1916. It looks like the Argonne but I can’t identify the mine entrances on the French reverse slope, which is similar to Les Éparges or Vauquois.
imagesdefense.gouv.fr/fr/la-guerre...
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La guerre de mines.
La guerre de mines.
https://imagesdefense.gouv.fr/fr/la-guerre-de-mines.html
6 days ago
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Simon Jones
Carla-Jean Stokes
29 days ago
William Rider-Rider, Curling match held at 5th Infantry Brigade Headquarters, January 1919, Library and Archives Canada MIKAN 3385505.
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Simon Jones
Carla-Jean Stokes
10 days ago
Unattributed, Canadian soldiers admire the Canadian War Memorial at St. Julien, ca. 1944*, LAC MIKAN 4233269. *The date range given to this entire collection of WW2 photographs in colour is 1943-1965. Finding the midway point from 1943-1945 is our best guess.
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Simon Jones
Carla-Jean Stokes
6 days ago
In February 1919, a Canadian official photographer spent some time with the Canadian Forestry Corps. Here are the two best photographs (obviously I'm speaking objectively). They both belong to Library and Archives Canada and are MIKAN 3522528-9.
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Teresa Doherty
7 days ago
Just a reminder that
@nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy
#HistNursing
project on Nursing Service Records is still running and still taking online volunteers - so anyone can get involved
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/our-ro...
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WO 399: A project update - The National Archives
In this blog, Dr. Jessamy Carlson blog discusses the latest developments in the cataloguing of WO 399, nursing service records, and provides a case study of Matron Mabel Whiffen RRC.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/our-role/plans-policies-performance-and-projects/our-projects/catalogue-week/wo-399-a-project-update/
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Simon Jones
Carla-Jean Stokes
7 days ago
Original colour portrait of Lawren P. Harris serving as an official war artist. Harris was the eldest son of Group of Seven founding member Lawren Harris. Library and Archives Canada MIKAN 4232978.
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Simon Jones
Carla-Jean Stokes
7 days ago
Hey gang, don't forget: you have until February 12 to sign up if you'd like to receive some cool
#warphotos
stuff in your mailbox this month 🙌🏼 link is in my bio.
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Simon Jones
Straßenverlauf
7 days ago
Am 5. Februar 1916 eröffnete während des Ersten Weltkriegs das dadaistische Cabaret Voltaire in der Spiegelgasse 1 im Haus der Beiz Meierei in Zürich. Nur wenige Häuser weiter sollte Lenin bald einziehen. 🧵
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Simon Jones
Carla-Jean Stokes
21 days ago
I rather cryptically posted last month that my next project was inspired, in part, by the Magic Lantern Slide. ✨ Drum Roll ✨ Starting in February 2026, I’m starting a snail mail club called the Magic Lantern Mail Club. Read on, or TL:DR - go follow me on the photo app!
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Simon Jones
Lucy Betteridge-Dyson
7 days ago
Guys and gals, please do give my pal Carla-Jean a follow. She is a brilliant historian of First World War photography and a wonderful human being.
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Simon Jones
Orkney Library & Archive
7 days ago
Today is
#NationalSweaterDay
so let's enjoy 'The Fair-Isle Jumper' painted by
#Orkney-born
artist Stanley Cursiter in 1923. Stanley Cursiter (1887-1976) was Keeper of the National Galleries of Scotland from 1930-1948 and was appointed the King's Painter and Limner in Scotland.
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Simon Jones
The Wiener Holocaust Library
8 days ago
For families separated by deportations and flight, letters were often the only means of keeping in touch. Franz Kuhn wrote to his daughter’s guardian Millie Levy, 4 February 1943...
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#OTD
4th February 1916, 18 men of 185th Tunnelling Company were killed 70ft beneath no man's land at La Boisselle on the Somme when the Germans detonated a mine charge. A month later, the 'Beeston Gazette and Echo' reported the death of miner Frederick Simpson.
8 days ago
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reposted by
Simon Jones
Brad Bolman
8 days ago
A devastating blow to academics everywhere (me)
winbuzzer.com/2026/01/28/g...
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Google Disables Search for Book Previews
Google has disabled search functionality for preview books on Google Books, leaving users unable to search through pages that remain visible on the platform.
https://winbuzzer.com/2026/01/28/google-disables-book-search-preview-pages-remain-xcxwbn/
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Today’s work distraction. A black Glaswegian among the women employed by the Corporation during the First World War. They are cleaning fire bricks at a gas works. (Unknown official photographer, c.1917-18.) Source:
www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...
8 days ago
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This is consensual, although I'm a little uncomfortable with it.
9 days ago
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This beautiful original artwork by Adam Hook from my book The War Underground 1914-18 has finally come back from the framers.
add a skeleton here at some point
9 days ago
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The dendro shows the portrait was posthumous, as was presumably already known? But if the underdrawing had shown an extra finger, now that would have been exciting.
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Hidden detail found in Anne Boleyn portrait was ‘witchcraft rebuttal’, say historians
Exclusive: Underdrawing suggests attempt to debunk myth that former wife of Henry VIII had sixth finger
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/02/hidden-detail-anne-boleyn-portrait-painting-witchcraft-rebuttal-hever-rose?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
10 days ago
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reposted by
Simon Jones
Jonesy Cartoons
11 days ago
Delighted to have my second
#cartoon
appear recently in
@airmail.news
#stateofthenation
#trump
#thinskinned
#prison
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My breakfast coffee mug is trying to tell me something
@theobserveruk.bsky.social
11 days ago
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Simon Jones
Alan Lester
11 days ago
1/10. Tory peer Daniel Hannan has posted a potted history of slavery that demonstrates how historical understanding is being twisted by politicians. I’ll examine it in light of historians’ research.
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Two clips from the amazing film 'A Day in the Life of a Munitions Worker', made in 1917 at the National Shell Filling Factory Chilwell, Nottingham. A massive explosion at the factory in 1918 killed 134 workers. Source:
www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...
1/2
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11 days ago
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Good news.
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First arrest after high-value Bristol Museum raid
Detectives are still hunting for four other suspects and have released new CCTV images.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgx74y0e2vo
13 days ago
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Only Goya could invest a bullfighter with such a complexity of doubt/contempt/disgust. (Alt: 3/4 length head-and-shoulder oil painting of a man in 30s, long dark black-ribboned hair, white stock, black coat, gazing pensively at viewer.)
add a skeleton here at some point
13 days ago
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Marshal Foch aimerait dire un mot.
14 days ago
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I always wondered why his nickname wasn't 'Dinger' Bell.
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Sir Idris Elba fined for speeding on scooter in London
The Wire and Luther actor was caught speeding at 28mph on Chelsea Embankment in June.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y5rpq5ed4o
14 days ago
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I've just downloaded a PhD thesis on Victorian bastardy and read its excellent epigraph: “Life's not about how hard of a hit you can give... it's about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward.” Sylvester Stallone: Rocky Balboa (
kar.kent.ac.uk/62866/27/Bab...
)
15 days ago
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reposted by
Simon Jones
Nina Baker
15 days ago
Similarly fatal failure to pay attention to the engineer: Letitia Chitty told to do calcs for Tarrant Tabor. She said the wood wasn't strong enough. It wasn't & 2 men died. More in ALTs
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Intensely relieved.
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Sycamore Gap sapling in Milton Keynes still 'safe and sound'
A charity says the sapling has been moved because of wet ground, dampening fears it had been stolen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98pmr7jrmyo?app-referrer=deep-link
15 days ago
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reposted by
Simon Jones
nitasha tiku
15 days ago
some of my favorite snippets from newly released court docs in the Anthropic copyright book case. eye-opening stuff on Project Panama, their plan to "destructively scan all the books in the world" in order to train AI
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Simon Jones
Every day, this picture hanging on my stairs by Jewish-Polish artist Wiktoria Goryńska reminds me of the Holocaust. 'Self-portrait on the telephone' is signed by her and dated 1930. It is the fifth print that she made from the block which is now in the National Museum in Warsaw. 1/4
about 2 years ago
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Simon Jones
Auschwitz Memorial
15 days ago
Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.
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Waiting for tickets to go on general sale today for one particular concert
@wigmore-hall.org.uk
.
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Summer 2026 | Priority Booking is now open
World class concerts in April - July 2026, including a two-week festival to celebrate Wigmore Hall's 125th Anniversary Festival
https://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/series/202526-season-april-july
16 days ago
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Disappeared bodies, mass burials and ‘30,000 dead’: what is the truth of Iran’s death toll?
Testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/iran-protests-death-toll-disappeared-bodies-mass-burials-30000-dead?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
16 days ago
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At Christmas, my wife buys everyone in our families a book from Oxfam as an extra present. This was mine. It's taken me about 47 years to like all of his symphonies. I may now listen to them in a different way, especially with an awareness of their profound irony.
16 days ago
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So a range of UK archives that resist placing their public collections in the public domain are nevertheless making them available for commercial AI exploitation?
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AI systems could use Met Office and National Archives data under UK plans
Ministers plan to license content from institutions such as National History Museum and National Library of Scotland
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/26/ai-systems-met-office-national-archives-data-uk-government-plans
16 days ago
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This badly-written article hurt my brain (but it quotes my friend Lesley).
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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Lost Robert Burns portrait discovered after 200 years - BBC News
The rediscovered portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn was found in an auction house following a house clearance last March.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2pgnel9xeo.amp
17 days ago
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"We also would like to return their hospital crutch left in our vehicle that one of them with a previous leg injury had used on the ascent but again, sadly no replies to date."
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Scafell Pike hikers left Wasdale rescue team to pay hotel bill - BBC News
The mountain rescue team says it feels obliged to settle the debt on their behalf.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vx0jrnmejo.amp
17 days ago
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Here in the south of England, it's the traditional cultural appropriation night.
17 days ago
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