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Cecil Woodham-Smith: 2 ideas worth knowing

2 ideas from Cecil Woodham-Smith, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• A potato blight killed a million people in a country that kept exporting food

  When potato blight destroyed Ireland's staple crop from 1845, roughly a million people died of starvation and disease and another million emigrated, shrinking Ireland's population …

  — Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849

• A garbled order sent 670 British cavalrymen galloping straight into enemy cannon

  During the 1854 Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, a miscommunicated order sent Britain's Light Brigade charging down a valley lined on three sides with Russian artillery, not…

  — Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade

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