The Diary Review

James or Jimmi Calhoun, soldier in the US Army, was born 170 years ago today. He married George Custer’s sister, and was transferred to Cust...

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of the British mountain climber, Alison Hargreaves. Having scaled Everest without the a...

‘To the Eastward & the Westward the Ice breaks up but soon freezes again. The Eskmeaux saw large Canoes full of White Men to the Westwar...

‘The flesh [of Hoatzins, locally called Ciganas] has an unpleasant odour of musk combined with wet hides - a smell called by the Brazilians ...

Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese explorer, died all of half a millennium ago today. Although he did not leave behind a diary of his own,...

‘We sighted two or three hundred yaks drinking in the river, and I wounded three. It was a glorious sight to see the whole herd dashing acro...

‘Launch. No, I couldn’t believe it. Until the moment the engine(s) were ignited, I still doubted it. In the last few days of our isolation i...

A few days ago, it was Reinhold Messner’s 90th birthday, and today it is the centenary of the birth of Messner’s hero, Hermann Buhl - both c...

Happy birthday Reinhold Messner, 80 years old today. An Italian mountaineer, dubbed by some as the greatest climber in history, he was the f...