Portal:Scotland

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Leven, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, at the end of a long period of design development for this type of vessel, which ended as steamships took over their routes. She was named after the short shirt of the fictional witch in Robert Burns' poem Tam o' Shanter, first published in 1791.

After the big improvement in the fuel efficiency of steamships in 1866, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 gave them a shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Continuing improvements in steam technology early in the 1880s meant that steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia, and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895 and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman, who used her as a training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe, in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship alongside HMS Worcester. By 1954, she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display.

Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships as part of the National Historic Fleet (the nautical equivalent of a Grade 1 Listed Building). She is one of only three remaining intact composite construction (wooden hull on an iron frame) ships from the nineteenth century, the others being the clipper City of Adelaide, now in Port Adelaide, South Australia and the warship HMS Gannet in Chatham. The beached skeleton of Ambassador, of 1869 lying near Punta Arenas, Chile is the only other significant remnant of this construction method.

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24 June 2024 –

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland reports that Scottish wildcat kittens have been born in the Cairngorms National Park, in a "major milestone" for the conservation of the critically endangered population. (The Guardian)

7 May 2024 – Premiership of John Swinney

The Scottish Parliament votes to elect John Swinney as First Minister of Scotland with 64 votes in favour and seven abstentions from the Scottish Greens. (BBC News)

6 May 2024 – 2024 Scottish National Party leadership election

John Swinney is elected leader of the Scottish National Party following the resignation of First Minister Humza Yousaf. (The Guardian)

4 May 2024 – International reactions to the Israel–Hamas war

Palestinian doctor and rector at the University of Glasgow Ghassan Abu-Sittah is denied entry into France after landing at Charles de Gaulle airport on his way to speak at the French Senate. Last month, he was denied entry into Germany. (Al Jazeera)

1 May 2024 – 2024 Scottish government crisis

The Scottish National Party administration survives the vote of no confidence earlier this week, prompting the party to seek a replacement for outgoing First Minister Humza Yousaf. (Al Jazeera)

29 April 2024 – 2024 Scottish government crisis

Ahead of a planned vote of no confidence, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf announces that he will resign from office. (CNBC) (The New York Times)

Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt KCB FRS FRAeS (13 April 1892 – 5 December 1973) was a Scottish pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology.

Watt began his career in radio physics with a job at the Met Office, where he began looking for accurate ways to track thunderstorms using the radio waves given off by lightning. This led to the 1920s development of a system later known as high-frequency direction finding (HFDF or "huff-duff"). Although well publicized at the time, the system's enormous military potential was not developed until the late 1930s. Huff-duff allowed operators to determine the location of an enemy radio transmitter in seconds and it became a major part of the network of systems that helped defeat the threat of German U-boats during World War II. It is estimated that huff-duff was used in about a quarter of all attacks on U-boats.

In 1935, Watt was asked to comment on reports of a German death ray based on radio. Watt and his assistant Arnold Frederic Wilkins quickly determined it was not possible, but Wilkins suggested using radio signals to locate aircraft at long distances. This led to a February 1935 demonstration where signals from a BBC short-wave transmitter were bounced off a Handley Page Heyford aircraft. Watt led the development of a practical version of this device, which entered service in 1938 under the code name Chain Home. This system provided the vital advance information that helped the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain.

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• ... that within the graveyard of the Category A–listed Crossmichael Parish Church, there is a memorial to William Gordon of Greenlaw that is itself designated Category A in its own right?
• ... that the 1830 abandonment of Chipewyan woman Matooskie by her Scottish husband was eventually settled with a dowry payment of £200?
• ... that Scottish inventor and music teacher Anne Gunn was granted the first British patent for a board game in 1801?
• ... that because of violent reactions – such as Jenny Geddes's on 23 July 1637 – to a Scottish prayer book, Walter Whitford kept loaded pistols visible to his congregants while using the book?
• ... that Colin Mackay, the political editor at Scottish Television, was "very sad" when Colin MacKay, the political editor at Scottish Television, died?
• ... that backgammon was derived from the esteemed 16th-century Scottish and English tables game of Irish and eventually surpassed it in popularity?
• ... that the bryozoan Walkeria tuberosa is sometimes referred to as Valkeria tuberosa despite being named after the Scottish natural historian John Walker?
• ... that Mary Earle was born near Ben Nevis, and although she became a professor of food technology in New Zealand, she never forgot her Scottish roots?