All articles in History
20th December, 2016 in History, Trivia & Gift
William the Conqueror: Crowned at Christmas
At least four times in the past thousand years three monarchs have ruled during a single year: Edward the Confessor, Harold and William I (Duke of Normandy) in 1066; Edward IV, Edward V and Richard III in 1483; Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey and Mary I in 1553; and of course George V,…
20th December, 2016 in History
The Victorian dinner inside a dinosaur
Whatever you have planned this New Year’s Eve, it almost certainly pales in comparison to what Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and his guests were doing on 31 December 1853. In a ruse designed to grab the attention of press and public, Hawkins, creator of the world’s first dinosaur s…
14th December, 2016 in Biography & Memoir, History
Roald Amundsen: The first to reach the South Pole
On 14 December 1911, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (who had already led the first expedition to traverse the North West Passage, and would go on to lead the first successful attempt to cross the Arctic by air) and his team became the first human beings to reach the South…
7th December, 2016 in History
The Brown Dog affair
In February 1903 a typical event took place in the teaching rooms of University College London in front of students. A live brown dog laid on a table was operated upon in order to find out how certain procedures would affect it. This process was called vivisection and was complet…
2nd December, 2016 in History, Society & Culture
Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell and the Pilgrimage of Grace
480 years ago on December 2nd a group of men gathered at Pontefract in Yorkshire to produce a list of grievances against King Henry VIII and his policies. These men were the representatives of a massive number of rebels who had participated in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a revolt of…
28th November, 2016 in History, Society & Culture
Six strange objects from the history of medicine
Nelson’s Spyglass plucks 101 curious objects from British history. From Beowulf’s manuscript, to Queen Victoria’s ballet shoes and, of course, Nelson’s spyglass, author Sophie Campbell provides a weird and wonderful look into history’s best kept artefacts dating back to early tim…
10th November, 2016 in Biography & Memoir, History, Society & Culture
Alan Turing’s ‘On Computable Numbers’
Alan Turing is best known for helping to crack the Nazi’s Enigma cipher machine at Bletchley Park during World War II. Turing’s work helped the Allies to shorten the conflict by at least two years. However, Turing was more than an incredible codebreaker. He was a brilliant mathem…
8th November, 2016 in History, Society & Culture
Seven things you (probably) didn’t know about America’s presidential elections
The 2016 US presidential campaign was one unlike any other. Party politics (and Twitter rants) aside, it was truly exceptional for being the first presidential race between a female major party candidate (the first woman to make a run for the White House was suffragette Victoria…
3rd November, 2016 in History
Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
Guy Fawkes is remembered every year throughout the nation, yet achieved nothing. Branded one of the greatest villains of all time, he is synonymous with a spectacular crime that he neither led nor actually committed. Fawkes was not the instigator of the Gunpowder Plot, yet he hol…
1st November, 2016 in History, Military
Writing Love and War in the WRNS
Nine days after moving her into sheltered accommodation, my mother had a stroke and died. It was heartbreaking to begin the gargantuan task of re-packing and sorting all her possessions again so soon after we had ‘got her straight’, as she would have said. There were a few boxes…
28th October, 2016 in History, Military
The signing of Armistice
Armistice Day is commemorated every year on November 11 to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front. The Armistice was signed at 5.12AM on 11 November but, for tidiness…
27th October, 2016 in History, Women in History
King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson
Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George V and Queen Mary and heir apparent, was known to the family as ‘David’. Charming and informal, he was a popular prince touring Britain and the empire, fond of golf, tennis, parties and dancing. Wanting to serve in the First World War,…