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| British gas masks of the Second World War pose a problem today, as many incorporated asbestos (both blue and white) within their filters. |
| The Oasis poets came together in Cairo during the Second World War, and a first selection of their wartime poetry was published in 1943. After the war, the Salamander Oasis Trust was set up to collect, edit and publish not only these original Cairo poems but other poetry written in the Middle East and other theatres of operations during the Second World War. |
| The bombing raid in the early hours of June 2, 1941, was the second-heaviest attack on the Manchester area during the Second World War. Just after midnight, a sustained 90-minute blitz saw high-explosive and incendiary bombs dropped on Manchester, Salford and Stretford. |
| Between the beginning of November and the middle of December 1943, Grand Admiral Doenitz came under increasing pressure to sanction a sortie by one of Germany's few remaining heavy surface ships to interrupt the flow of supplies via the Arctic convoy route. |
| Siegfried Sassoon, one of the best known poets to emerge from the First World War, enlisted in the ranks of the Sussex Yeomanry on the outbreak of war in August 1914, and was commissioned the following year into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. |
| During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Mosleys were a family of merchants in the cloth trade, and they amassed fortunes in Manchester and London. Mosley Street, in Manchester, was named after them. Sir Oswald Mosley, the 6th Baronet, was born in Staffordshire in 1896 and brought up in Shropshire. |
| The Spanish civil war began on the night of the 17th/18th July 1936. The first signs of rebellion appeared at 4.20pm when the Melilla garrison in Morocco rose against the government, followed afterwards by troops in Tetuán. |
| International Brigades were formed in September 1936, to serve with the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). |
| Probably the most famous fighter of all time, the Supermarine Spitfire will forever be a symbol of British defiance during the Battle of Britain in 1940. |
| The Fairey Swordfish was such a successful design which, despite its antiquated appearance, outclassed the aircraft intended to replace it and served throughout the Second World War. |
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