The mastermind behind the infamous Gunpowder Plot was not Guy Fawkes, but Robert Catesby. Guy Fawkes was just the fall guy ...

Previously known as New Amsterdam and formerly in the hands of the Dutch, in 1664 the settlement, now known as New York, ...

The British Empire is remembered for its extensive, long-lasting and far-reaching imperial activities that ushered in an era of globalisation and connectivity. The British Empire began in its ...

One of England’s most beloved poets and a pioneer of Romanticism, William Wordsworth was made Poet Laureate in 1843. William was born in Cockermouth in Cumbria on 7th April 1770 to John Wordsworth, a ...

On 6th November 1917, after three months of fierce fighting, British and Canadian forces finally took control of the tiny village of Passchendaele in the West Flanders region of Belgium, so ending one ...

In 1900, there were over 11,000 hansom cabs on the streets of London alone. There were also several thousand horse-drawn buses, each needing 12 horses per day, making a staggering total of over 50,000 ...

The South Sea Bubble has been called: the world’s first financial crash, the world’s first Ponzi scheme, speculation mania and a disastrous example of what can happen when people fall prey to ‘group ...

“There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.” Oscar Wilde in his novel, ‘The Picture of ...

“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as a good tavern or inn.” So wrote Samuel Johnson and for many, this remains true today. Think of an ...

The Highland Clearances remain a controversial period in Scotland’s history and are still talked of with great bitterness, particularly by those families who were dispossessed of their land and even, ...

Cotton, a valuable raw material and a mainstay of the textile industry, has been around for centuries and remains one of the most crucial resources to this day. Cotton has been used by humans as far ...

Richard I the Lionheart (r. 1189-1199) is perhaps best known for his exploits in the Third Crusade. His war against Saladin is one of the classic stories of medieval chivalry and crusading. But ...