QUESTION: Since its inception, what was the furthest and closest the Doomsday Clock was to midnight? What were the relative global situations?
The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists – those who worked on the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic bomb.
Artist Martyl Langsdorf designed the clock to represent how close humanity is to destruction.
It was initially set at seven minutes to midnight, to symbolize the urgency of the nuclear threat.
The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists – those who worked on the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic bomb.
The closest the clock has ever been to midnight is the current time of 90 seconds, set in January 2023 due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and climate change.
Since 2010, when concerns about climate change led to six minutes to midnight, the clock has been moving ever closer to Judgment Day: five minutes for 2012, three minutes for 2015, two minutes for half for 2017, two minutes for 2017, two minutes for 2017. minutes in 2018 and 100 seconds in 2020.
The longest the Doomsday Clock has been past midnight was 17 minutes in 1991. This occurred during a period of significant reduction in nuclear tensions following the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the US and the USSR.
Rachel Keys, Twickenham, Middx
QUESTION: How did the Earl of Shaftesbury come to own the lake bed of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland?
Lough Neagh is the largest freshwater lake in the United Kingdom and provides 40% of Northern Ireland's drinking water.
Historically, Lough Neagh was under the control of several Gaelic lords who ruled Ulster, the last being Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. After the lords' defeat in the Nine Years' War in 1603, James I began a process of colonization by English and Scottish loyalists, known as the Plantation of Ulster.
The Englishman Sir Arthur Chichester was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1605 and took control of Lough Neagh.
After a period in which these rights were terminated, Lough Neagh was returned to the Chichester family when Charles II passed it to Sir Arthur Chichester's nephew, Colonel Arthur Chichester, 1st Earl of Donegall, in 1661.
Lough Neagh remained under the control of the Donegalls until the death of the 3rd Marquess in 1883.
With no male heirs, Lough and other lands passed to his daughter Harriet and her husband Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury.
It is now owned by the 12th Earl. The fact that Lough Neagh is owned by English earls has long rankled. A major point of contention was whether Charles II was the legal owner of the Lough. This dispute was resolved by the House of Lords in 1911, when it was decided that the king fell within the jurisdiction of the law.
Continued dredging of the Lough's bed for sand and a series of toxic blue-green algae blooms have led to calls for it to be placed under public ownership.
DE Stuart, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
QUESTION: What is the Portuguese myth of Sebastianism? Why is it so long lasting?
Sebastianism is a Portuguese legend similar to that of King Arthur. Like Arthur, Sebastian is invoked in times of national peril and has become ingrained in the country's politics, art and literature.
King Sebastian, born in 1554, ascended the throne at the age of three. He became obsessed with expanding the Christian faith through crusades.
This led to a military expedition to North Africa, resulting in the disastrous Battle of Alcácer Quibir (4 August 1578) in northern Morocco, where he suffered a catastrophic defeat.
Sebastian's body was never recovered. His death led to a succession crisis and the formation, in 1580, of the Iberian Union, which placed Portugal under the control of the Spanish Habsburg monarchs.
During this period, the patriots resurrected the predictions of the Portuguese Nostradamus, Gonçalo Annes Bandarra, prophesying the second coming of Sebastian to rescue Portugal.
The myth gained legitimacy by the Jesuit priest Antonio Vieira when he reinterpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream from the Book of Daniel, in which the king dreamed of a giant statue made of five different materials, including gold, silver and a mixture of iron and clay.
Vieira took advantage of this to announce the arrival of the Fifth Empire of peace and prosperity, led by the return of D. Sebastião, the “hidden one”.
Still in 1896, the rebel religious leader António Conselheiro invoked Sebastian in the War of Canudos, while Fernando Pessoa, Portugal's national poet, immortalized the former and future king in his poetic cycle Mensagem (1934).
John Edgar, Blackpool, Lancs
