London museum airbrushes out Churchill’s cigar

by Sean McLachlan on

While there have been a lot of angry comments here on Gadling about Egypt’s smoking ban and the even stricter smoking ban in Finland, neither country has tried to pretend people didn’t smoke in the past. Now someone at the Winston Churchill’s Britain at War Experience, a London museum, seems to have decided dead people could get lung cancer and airbrushed out a cigar from a photo of Winston Churchill.

A visitor to the museum noticed that a famous photo of Churchill hanging above the entrance had been doctored to remove a cigar from his mouth. The altered photo and the original can be seen here. The museum denies all responsibility and says it’s investigating, but being a museum they shouldn’t have to wait for a member of the public to correct their history, especially about the very person the museum is named after.

Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War Two and was famous for lighting up a stogy faster than you can say “Dresden bombing.” He also drank regularly, but his lungs and liver were apparently none the worse for wear since he died of a stroke at age ninety.

Photo courtesy Deutsches Bundesarchiv.

Canterbury’s medieval town gate saved

by Sean McLachlan on

Canterbury is famous for its beautiful cathedral, but this historic city has lots of other attractions. The old medieval entrance into town called Westgate Towers is the local favorite. Sadly, lack of funding and a dwindling number of visitors to the Westgate Towers Museum made it look like it was going to be shut down.

Local businessman Charles Lambie has stepped in and leased the towers. He’s donated £250,000 ($369,000) to the city council to keep it afloat and plans improvements to the museum to make it more attractive to visitors.

If you’re visiting Canterbury you might want to stay overnight rather than do the traditional day trip from London. Besides the cathedral, there’s an early medieval abbey, a Norman castle, the remains of a Roman house, and one of the best curry joints in England.

You won’t want to miss the Westgate Towers either. More than six hundred years old, it’s the largest medieval gateway in the UK and offers a fine view of the town. The museum has displays of weapons and armor and tells the story of the city’s medieval defenses.

Photo courtesy Necrothesp via Wikimedia Commons.

Schindler’s List factory becomes museum

by Sean McLachlan on

During World War Two, German industrialist Oskar Schindler saved some 1,200 of his Jewish workers from extermination. His enamelware and munitions factories were considered vital for the German war effort and he claimed his workers all had special skills vital for the operation of his factories, whether they had or not. Many of his “skilled mechanics” were in fact children or handicapped people.

Schindler became the subject of the book Schindler’s Ark and later the movie Schindler’s List. Now part of his factory in Krakow has become a museum to the city’s war years.

The exhibitions cover the outbreak of the war, the German invasion of Poland, Polish resistance movements, and Schindler’s struggle to save his workers. The museum is a branch of the Krakow City Historical Museum. The front page of their website has a short video about Schindler that’s quite powerful, even if you don’t understand Polish.

Photo courtesy Noa Cafri via Wikimedia Commons.

Free museums for soldiers and their families

by Sean McLachlan on

Being on active duty is tough. Soldiers spend long periods in dangerous parts of the world and only get a few precious days or weeks to see family and friends. Now the Blue Star Museums initiative is helping them spend some quality time by offering free museum admission to more than 750 venues nationwide.

Military personnel and their families can enjoy access to museums in every state for free until Labor Day on September 6. The soldier needs to present a Geneva Convention common access card (CAC), a DD Form 1173 ID card, or a DD Form 1173-1 ID card. Active duty members of the military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard), National Guard and Reserve are all eligible. Even better, they can bring up to five immediate family members.

Blue Star Museums has an interactive map that helps you find participating museums in your area. They also have a blog with news and profiles of some of the museums.

Image of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment on patrol in Iraq courtesy the U.S. Government.

Cleopatra exhibit premieres in Philadelphia

by Sean McLachlan on

Cleopatra was the last great pharaoh of Egypt, and its most famous. Her name is synonymous with beauty, mystery, and power, yet not much is known about her. Her enemies erased most details of her life and even her tomb is lost.

Two teams of archaeologists have been searching for clues about the enigmatic woman, and the treasures they’ve found are the subject of a major exhibition opening tomorrow at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia called Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.

Cleopatra VII, who lived from 69-30 BC, was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty, founded by one of Alexander the Great’s generals in 304 BC. She was also the last pharaoh of an independent Egypt. For a time she was the lover of Julius Caesar, but she changed allegiances (and beds) to join forces with Mark Anthony to carve out an empire of their own. Julius Caesar’s successor Octavian defeated them in battle and they took their own lives, and Egypt became part of the Roman Empire.

The exhibition showcases more than 150 artifacts never seen before in the United States, from giant statues fished from the sea to a government document that may include a note written by Cleopatra herself. The artifacts come from two different excavations. One is run by Dr. Zahi Hawass at the temple of Taposiris Magna, about 30 miles west of Alexandria. Hawass believes this may be the final resting place of the famous lovers.

The other excavation is directed by Dr. Franck Goddio, a French underwater archaeologist who has explored the harbor of Alexandria and the coast of Egypt and discovered Cleopatra’s palace and the two ancient cities of Canopus and Heracleion, which had sank into the sea after a series of earthquakes and tidal waves nearly 2,000 years ago.

The exhibition takes on an ancient subject with modern technology, including multimedia exhibits and a chance to interact with social media such as Twitter and Foursquare while seeing the displays. Following the links gives the visitor more information about Cleopatra and a discount coupon they can send to their friends.

Neither team has found solid evidence for the location of Cleopatra’s burial place, so Egypt’s most alluring woman will retain some of her mystery for the time being. Their finds, however, have thrown new light on the life and times of one of Egypt’s greatest female pharaohs.

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt will remain at the Franklin Institute until January 2, 2011, before heading out on a tour of North America.

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