THE BREEZER Newsletter

He told Cooke that if the initial thirteen-week run did “wildly” well, it might be extended to twenty-six. Letter from America would run for fifty-eight years. Eighty years ago this Tuesday, 24 March 1946, Cooke broadcast the first edition of American Letter. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at Batting the Breeze. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 22nd March 2026. Happy Sunday!Last week I...

Giuseppe Garibaldi gathered a thousand men from Quarto — ‘I Mille’, ‘The Thousand’ —and slipped out to sea. They wore red shirts, carried whatever weapons they could lay their hands on and headed out to challenge a Bourbon army tens of thousands strong. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 15th March 2026. "Beware the Ides of...

Australian independence: the story of the longest, and arguably most amicable, divorce in the history of the British Empire. No war of independence. No declaration of grievances. Not even raised voices. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 1st March 2026. Happy Sunday!The United States turns 250 years old this year. As the Fourth...

To clear up the maths, Arthur Priest had survived two crippling collisions and four sinkings in his short nine-year career at sea. In that time, he had been torpedoed, mined, shelled, rammed… and iced. Cats have nine lives, Priest had already used up six. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 22nd February 2026. Happy Sunday!There...

Entertainment ran to Church festivals, the occasional wedding and swapping stories about whose cow had died most dramatically. Meat was a luxury reserved for feast days. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 15th February 2026. Happy Sunday!Domrémy-la-Pucelle sits in the Vosges region of northeastern France—a village so small that...

At Portsmouth Dockyard, the last blocks were knocked away. The 18,000-ton vessel slid into the Solent, stirring up waves that would be felt around the world. Fisher had wiped the slate clean. The Empire’s naval dominance was suddenly under threat. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 8th February 2026. Happy Sunday!We know that...

When the young lovers attempted to elope, the enraged general gave chase. Tadeusz barely escaped with his dignity intact, fleeing back to France before the general could express his disapproval in more permanent terms. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 1st February 2026. Happy Sunday!A couple of years ago I chatted with Rebecca...

The absurdity reached its peak on Christmas Day 1870, when Voisin’s, one of Paris’s finest restaurants, served ‘stuffed donkey’s head, elephant consommé, roast camel, antelope terrine and bear chops in pepper sauce’. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 25 January 2026. Happy Sunday !I turn on the news with trepidation these days....

Worst of all for the Chinese, the British continued to trade in opium. This was the beginning of their ‘century of humiliation’. Of course, China had the last laugh. The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. 18th January 2026. Happy Sunday Reader!Having watched rather too much David Attenborough over the festive break and convincing...