The night of Palm Sunday 1942 was cold and cloudless in the German city of Lübeck.
Moonlight reflecting on the waters of the port greatly assisted the task of 234 Wellington and Stirling bombers as they dropped more than 2,500 incendiary bombs.
Nearly one-fifth of the city’s buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged, none more celebrated than the 14th-century Marienkirche.
The Germans call it Englandschlacht, but to the rest of the world it is better known as the Battle of Britain – unique in the history of warfare in that it was fought entirely in the air.
The campaign which followed the fall of France in June 1940 was simply for control of the skies over England.
If it won, the German war machine would be able to press home its advantage with an attempted invasion.
Sarah Bernhardt was the most famous actress of her day.
She dominated the stage of the Comédie Française from the 1870s, became a heroine of the early silent films and is honoured with a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Her adoring fans nicknamed her ‘The Divine Sarah’.
Many collectors recall the hectic events of August 18, 1966, when the ‘England Winners’ reprint of the World Cup 4d stamp went on sale.
More than 150 million copies of the original stamp had been printed, so when it was made known that the new issue would consist of only 12 million, speculation ran riot.
Jostling in post office queues was widely reported, supplies were quickly exhausted, and copies were changing hands for 40 times their face value.
One of the most useful reference books any 19th-century collector could possess was the Reverend Robert Brisco Earée’s authoritative study of forgeries and bogus issues, first published in 1882 and unforgettably titled Album Weeds.
And if you want to appreciate just how valuable this kind of research was to early philatelists, you need look no further than the curious Amoy, Shanghai, Ningpo & Hong Kong locals.
Earée reflected nostalgically on these stamps, recalling that in his youthful days they were listed in many catalogues, prominently advertised for sale, and became a staple element of junior collections.
Britain’s 1964 International Botanical Congress stamps highlighted the talents of the husband-and-wife design team of Michael and Sylvia Goaman.
They had previously produced botanical designs for Sierra Leone’s Flowers set in 1963.
Printed in photogravure by Harrison & Sons, this attractive multicoloured issue seemed to mark the newly independent nation’s determination to make an impression on the philatelic world.
Switzerland had first introduced Landscapes definitives in 1934, focusing on its famously spectacular scenery of mountain peaks and passes, gorges, waterfalls and lakes.
But in 1949 a completely new set was released, with a rather different take on the subject.
The set of 12 had ‘technology in the landscape’ as its overriding theme, and therefore majored on industrial design, with images of railway viaducts, man-made reservoirs, ports, power stations, survey marks and even electricity pylons.
The second miniature sheet in Royal Mail’s railway tour of the UK will be released on March 8.
Classic Locomotives of Scotland features four different types of engine, two in colour photographs and two in black and white, with a background image of LNER Class K2 2-6-0 crossing Glenfinnan Viaduct in the Highlands in 1947.
The sheet was designed by Delaney, and printed in litho by Cartor.
Royal Mail is celebrating the life and work of 10 significant but in some cases lesser-known citizens, in a special stamp issue on February 23.
The Britons of Distinction set celebrates distinguished individuals from the realms of engineering, computing, architecture, music, politics, literature and design, with a secret agent added to the mix for good measure.
Some are quite familiar names but others less so, certainly in comparison with the Eminent Britons set of 2009.
