People who know me, know that I am a font of useless knowledge. I'm pretty handy in the old pub quiz. At least... I'd like to think so.

My specialist subject is Tudor history. Case and point: I visited Warwick Castle today and they had models of Henry VIII and his six wives on display. I discovered that I could apparently identify each of his wives on sight. I couldn't fully confirm my educated guess as there was no sign saying who was who though, but I'm relatively confident...

(Not my pic - source) L-R Katherine Howard, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Henry VIII, Anne of Cleves, Katherine of Aragon and Katherine Parr.

My interest in this subject is helped by the fact that I literally live a few miles from the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field, where Richard III was killed by the young Henry Tudor in 1485. The site is a place I semi-regularly visit to walk the dog, and it was the standard school trip for us.

I personally think it's pretty cool that I live very near the site where one of the most famous English monarchic dynasties started and where a civil war ended. Without the Tudors, particularly Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Britain would not be as it is now.

But anyway, I bring this up now because of the news that archaeologists may have discovered the final resting site of Richard III in Leicester, under what used to be an old Franciscan church (now a carpark).

People are debating whether knowing the burial place of an old king is relevant anymore. Someone I spoke to about the discovery wondered if we should be spending money on such things when we have the current economic situation, and problems like poverty still prevalent. An article in the HuffPost argues that finding and verifying stuff we thought we knew is culturally and emotionally satisfying. There are probably a few other opinions that are just as valid.

I put forward that spending money (either private investment or taxpayer's money) into research of any kind is a good thing. If we don't fund projects, we put people who are trained to do such projects out of work, and in turn worsen the economic climate we are already in. Fine, it may not affect our daily lives that we have (possibly) discovered the remains of a king under a Leicester carpark, or that we now think there actually is a Higg's boson-like particle but:

Not to know is bad, not to wish to know is worse. - Nigerian Proverb

Learning about new things is making us slowly less and less ignorant of the world around us, and that can't be a bad thing.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant. - Plato 

In conclusion, I'm excited about this new development in the story of Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth Field.