In 1885, Arts and Crafts artist Phoebe Anna Traquair received her first professional commission: the decoration of a tiny, ...

Whilst the English penchant for manners and socially appropriate behaviour is renowned across the world, the word etiquette to which we so often refer actually originates from the French estiquette ...

On 9th October 1779 a group of English textile workers in Manchester rebelled against the introduction of machinery which threatened their skilled craft. This was the first of many Luddite riots to ...

Ragnar Lothbrok, Erik Bloodaxe and Harald Hardrada are a trio of legendary Viking warriors. Towards the end of their careers, each man sailed his longships upriver to Jorvik, or York. Not one of them ...

The year 2011 marked the 350th anniversary of the execution of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England – two and half years AFTER his death.. Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon, a small town ...

The Boer Ultimatum and the Causes of the Second Boer War. On 11th October 1899, the Second Boer War broke out between the British Empire and the two Boer states called the Republic of Transvaal and ...

On October 6th 1854 the people of Tyneside believed that the end of the world was upon them. In the early hours an explosion occurred which shook the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and its neighbour ...

“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 ...

“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 ...

The year was 1888 and the location Bow in the East End of London, a place where some of the most poverty stricken in society lived and worked. The Match Girls’ Strike was industrial action taken up by ...

The term ‘hangover’ is universally understood to mean the disproportionate suffering that comes after a night of over-indulgence. But where does the term actually come from? One possible explanation ...

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, ...