Word: british
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...balloon neared the British Isles, the winds died, and fearing the balloon might drop into the sea, American rescue planes were sent up. But a breeze freshened, and the crew caught a dizzying glimpse of Ireland through the clouds as they crossed over the tiny port of Louisburgh in County Mayo. Once they had traversed Wales and crossed the English Channel to the French coast, the men on Double Eagle II found themselves the center of a flock of light airplanes and helicopters that whizzed by in salute and formed an honor guard to escort them the rest...
World War I virtually wiped out a generation of British males. The slaughter in the trenches claimed three-quarters of a million young Englishmen and helped produce the "spinster bulge" of the '20s and '30s, when Britain had a surplus of nearly 2 million women, most of whom were never able to marry...
...made a strong comeback and once again outnumbered females. But now, according to a demographic report, Britain is on the brink of a serious "bachelor bulge." Tucked away in a few paragraphs of a 100-page government study is startling information: in the 20-to 24-year age group, British males now outnumber females by 1.3 million to 789,000. In the prime marriage years, 20 to 34, the ratio is even more lop sided: there are 800,000 extra males. For the rest of the century, women will hold the upper hand in the marriage mart. Says Government Demographer...
Social Historian Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy is interested in how his countrymen got to be the way they are, i.e., typically British. His previous look at this process, The Unnatural History of the English Nanny, uncovered early influences on the children of the upper and middle classes. What happened to the boys when they left home is a more complicated subject, because the schools to which they were exiled at around age eight have a history dating back some 14 centuries. That is a daunting span for any single book to cover, but the author attacks it with zest...
...British upper-class males," one source told Gathorne-Hardy, "were homosexual in everything but their sex lives." If true, small wonder. Adolescent boys cut off from all outside contacts and jumbled together night and day will become unusually aware of each other. Clandestine activities leave few traces. Reviewing what facts there are, the author guesses that the percentage of public school boys who actually engaged in homosexual acts was no greater than in the young male population at large. But many scholars fell into Platonic love affairs with each other that haunted them all their lives. A pattern...