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🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Trains 🔗 Ireland

In British and Irish rail transport, a slip coach or slip carriage is passenger rolling stock that is uncoupled from an express train while the train is in motion, then slowed by a guard in the coach using the brakes, bringing it to a stop at the next station. The coach was thus said to be slipped from its train. This allowed passengers to alight at an intermediate station without the main train having to stop, thus improving the journey time of the main train. In an era when the railway companies were highly competitive, they strove to keep journey times as short as possible, avoiding intermediate stops wherever possible.

🔗 Australia 🔗 Canada 🔗 New Zealand 🔗 Psychology 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Sociology 🔗 Ireland

The tall poppy syndrome is the cultural phenomenon of jealous people holding back or directly attacking those who are perceived to be better than the norm, "cutting down the tall poppy". It describes a draw towards mediocrity.

Commonly in Australia and New Zealand, "Cutting down the tall poppy" is used to describe those who think too highly of themselves and it is seen by some as self-deprecating and by others as promoting modesty and egalitarianism.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Espionage 🔗 Germany 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military biography 🔗 Biography/military biography 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Military history/World War II

Eric Arthur Roberts (18 June 1907 – 17 or 18 December 1972) was an MI5 agent during the Second World War under the alias Jack King. By posing as a Gestapo agent and infiltrating fascist groups in the UK, Roberts was able to prevent secret information finding its way to Germany. Roberts continued to work for the security services after the war, particularly in Vienna, but it was a time of great anxiety in the services because of the suspicions surrounding double agents such as the Cambridge spy ring.

Roberts never felt completely accepted by MI5 because of his social background and a desk role did not suit him as well as his wartime role had. He is the subject of the biography Agent Jack (2018) by Robert Hutton, and his adventures were the inspiration for the novel Our Friends In Berlin by Anthony Quinn and for a major character in the novel Transcription by Kate Atkinson.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Economics 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Virginia 🔗 Chicago 🔗 Virginia/Albemarle County

Ronald Harry Coase (; 29 December 1910 – 2 September 2013) was a British economist and author. He was the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School, where he arrived in 1964 and remained for the rest of his life. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1991.

Coase, who believed economists should study real markets and not theoretical ones, established the case for the corporation as a means to pay the costs of operating a marketplace. Coase is best known for two articles in particular: "The Nature of the Firm" (1937), which introduces the concept of transaction costs to explain the nature and limits of firms; and "The Problem of Social Cost" (1960), which suggests that well-defined property rights could overcome the problems of externalities (see Coase theorem). Additionally, Coase's transaction costs approach is currently influential in modern organizational economics, where it was reintroduced by Oliver E. Williamson.

🔗 Law 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Politics of the United Kingdom

The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), is an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties.

Prior to the statute's enactment in 1710, copying restrictions were authorized by the Licensing of the Press Act 1662. These restrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the exclusive power to print—and the responsibility to censor—literary works. The censorship administered under the Licensing Act led to public protest; as the act had to be renewed at two-year intervals, authors and others sought to prevent its reauthorisation. In 1694, Parliament refused to renew the Licensing Act, ending the Stationers' monopoly and press restrictions.

Over the next 10 years the Stationers repeatedly advocated bills to re-authorize the old licensing system, but Parliament declined to enact them. Faced with this failure, the Stationers decided to emphasise the benefits of licensing to authors rather than publishers, and the Stationers succeeded in getting Parliament to consider a new bill. This bill, which after substantial amendments was granted Royal Assent on 5 April 1710, became known as the Statute of Anne owing to its passage during the reign of Queen Anne. The new law prescribed a copyright term of 14 years, with a provision for renewal for a similar term, during which only the author and the printers to whom they chose to license their works could publish the author's creations. Following this, the work's copyright would expire, with the material falling into the public domain. Despite a period of instability known as the Battle of the Booksellers when the initial copyright terms under the Statute began to expire, the Statute of Anne remained in force until the Copyright Act 1842 replaced it.

The statute is considered a "watershed event in Anglo-American copyright history ... transforming what had been the publishers' private law copyright into a public law grant". Under the statute, copyright was for the first time vested in authors rather than publishers; it also included provisions for the public interest, such as a legal deposit scheme. The Statute was an influence on copyright law in several other nations, including the United States, and even in the 21st century is "frequently invoked by modern judges and academics as embodying the utilitarian underpinnings of copyright law".

🔗 Books 🔗 Systems 🔗 Business 🔗 Psychology 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Engineering 🔗 Invention 🔗 Systems/Project management 🔗 Method engineering

Six Thinking Hats was written by Dr. Edward de Bono. "Six Thinking Hats" and the associated idea parallel thinking provide a means for groups to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way, and in doing so to think together more effectively.

In 2005, the tool found some use in the United Kingdom innovation sector, where it was offered by some facilitation companies and had been trialled within the United Kingdom's civil service.

🔗 Technology 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military aviation 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/Military science, technology, and theory 🔗 Military history/Weaponry 🔗 Canada 🔗 Architecture 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Military history/Maritime warfare 🔗 Military history/World War II 🔗 Engineering 🔗 Ships 🔗 Military history/Canadian military history 🔗 Military history/European military history 🔗 Military history/British military history

Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies) was a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice) for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time. The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke, who worked for Combined Operations Headquarters. After promising scale tests and the creation of a prototype on a lake (Patricia Lake, Jasper National Park) in Alberta, Canada, the project was shelved due to rising costs, added requirements, and the availability of longer-range aircraft and escort carriers which closed the Mid-Atlantic gap the project was intended to address.

🔗 Biography 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Ships

The rescue of Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman occurred between 29 August and 1 September 1973 after their Vickers Oceanics small submersible Pisces III was trapped on the seabed at a depth of 1,575 ft (480 m), 150 mi (240 km) off Ireland in the Celtic Sea. The 76-hour multinational rescue effort resulted in the deepest sub rescue in history.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Africa 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Military history/African military history 🔗 Africa/Tanzania 🔗 British Empire 🔗 Military history/European military history 🔗 Military history/British military history

The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history. The immediate cause of the war was the death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896 and the subsequent succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash. The British authorities preferred Hamud bin Muhammed, who was more favourable to British interests, as sultan. In accordance with a treaty signed in 1886, a condition for accession to the sultanate was that the candidate obtain the permission of the British consul, and Khalid had not fulfilled this requirement. The British considered this a casus belli and sent an ultimatum to Khalid demanding that he order his forces to stand down and leave the palace. In response, Khalid called up his palace guard and barricaded himself inside the palace.

The ultimatum expired at 09:00 East Africa Time (EAT) on 27 August, by which time the British had gathered three cruisers, two gunboats, 150 marines and sailors, and 900 Zanzibaris in the harbour area. The Royal Navy contingent were under the command of Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson and the pro-Anglo Zanzibaris were commanded by Brigadier-General Lloyd Mathews of the Zanzibar army (who was also the First Minister of Zanzibar). Around 2,800 Zanzibaris defended the palace; most were recruited from the civilian population, but they also included the sultan's palace guard and several hundred of his servants and slaves. The defenders had several artillery pieces and machine guns, which were set in front of the palace sighted at the British ships. A bombardment, opened at 09:02, set the palace on fire and disabled the defending artillery. A small naval action took place, with the British sinking the Zanzibari royal yacht HHS Glasgow and two smaller vessels. Some shots were also fired ineffectually at the pro-British Zanzibari troops as they approached the palace. The flag at the palace was shot down and fire ceased at 09:40.

The sultan's forces sustained roughly 500 casualties, while only one British sailor was injured. Sultan Khalid received asylum in the German consulate before escaping to German East Africa (in the mainland part of present Tanzania). The British quickly placed Sultan Hamud in power at the head of a puppet government. The war marked the end of the Zanzibar Sultanate as a sovereign state and the start of a period of heavy British influence.

🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Education 🔗 Science

The Nuffield Science Teaching Project was a programme to develop a better approach to teaching science in British secondary schools, under the auspices of the Nuffield Foundation. Although not intended as a curriculum, it gave rise to alternative national examinations, and its use of discovery learning was influential in the 1960s and 1970s.