How long ago does something have to have happened for you to consider it history? BBC History Magazine recently ran a poll, and 59% of people said that history was anything older than a decade or less, including 31% saying it could be something that happened a second ago. Obviously, as a writer on the subject I'm interested by this as it affects what I cover, and I'm interested in your comments. How close to the present day do you think 'history' comes?

Britain's Bletchley Park was a centre for Allied code-breaking during World War 2, and some commentators have claimed their work helped shorten the war by years. Recently the thousands of surviving people who worked at Bletchley were awarded medals, the delay partly due to the secrecy which surrounded the project for many years. I wanted to highlight this article from Silicon.com for two reasons. Firstly because it contains many quotations from staff and is revealing. For instance, the Colossus code-breaking machine got so hot everyone worked in its room in short sleeves. I also wanted to mention it because it's nice to see a technology site pay tribute to the pioneers of modern computing.

The British press have published recollections of a former British soldier in World War 1 which reveals the tale of a twelve year old boy. The memories come from George Maher, who lied about his age to enlist for the British army when he was only 13, and was sent to the front line trenches during the Battle of the Somme. He broke down during the conflict and his true age was revealed, at which point he was locked up in a train with other boys who had also lied. One, unnamed in the report I read in the Telegraph, was only twelve, and had also lied about his age. Mayer recalled "The youngest was 12 years old. A little nuggety bloke he was, too. We joked that the other soldiers would have had to have lifted him up to see over the trenches." This would make the boy the youngest soldier known to have served in the British army during the war.

As I've mentioned audio and visual takes on the Berlin Wall recently, it's time for some good old fashioned text. We have an introduction to the subject, but if you want to take your reading further, how about this interview from Stanford University. It features a question and answer session with James Sheehan, a history professor, and Amir Eshel, a German Studies professor. Questions include 'Which facets of Cold War history do you find most compelling?' and 'From the perspective of your research, what do you feel are the most lasting implications of the Berlin Wall today?'