In 1805, when he became a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, the college authorities told Lord Byron that pet dogs were banned. He...

It was 1976, a notable year for aviation. In Europe, Air France and British Airways launched the Concorde supersonic aircraft. In the...

In order to combat better-supplied American and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong (VC) dug tens of thousands...

The day before Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, he gave his final speech, known as ‘I’ve...

When we visualise the Great Depression, we think first of one woman: Native American migrant worker Florence Owens Thompson. Few of us...

When American rock and roll made its way to the UK in the 1950s and 60s, along with a burgeoning folk and blues revival, many young...

"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him." — Booker T. Washington In 1999 ABC released a documentary based on a compiled...

2105 Years Young Today! One of the last titans of the Roman Republic, Mark Antony’s legacy is almost as long lasting as it is far...

Known among the Nazis as "the girl with the red hair," 24-year-old Hannie Schaft was so deadly that Adolf Hitler personally ordered her...

I make no attempt to hide it, but I do love a good heist (although the best heists are obviously ones we'll likely never hear of) but...

It's Christmas 1880, what do you get the child that has everything? How about nightmares delivered via an automated monkey pastry-chef...

When British writer William Crackanthorpe visited the Mediterranean island of Elba in 1814, he was wildly curious about its most famous...

“Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go,” 21-year-old Sophie Scholl lamented, before she was guillotined by the Nazis. “But what does...

James Francis Hurley, known as Frank, was born in the Glebe district of Sydney, Australia in October 1885. His father Edward was a...

All year, the ship had been trapped, the ice pushing and pinching the hull, the wood howling in protest. Finally, on October 27, 1915, a...

Even in his time, William Hogarth was much loved for his satirical, ‘conversation’ paintings. He was a man with strong social views and...

It's been well documented that AC/DC are the greatest band in the history of the galaxy, I've seen them a fair few times live and I can...

In 1820, a whale rammed into an American whale-hunting ship in the South Pacific. It was the first time in American history that a...

It’s a good bet your first box of crayons or watercolors was a simple affair of six or so colours… just like the palette belonging to...

In 1924, a group of ten children and hundreds of spectators gathered for a mass baptism. This was no mere religious rite. As the children...

The Victorian artist Richard Dadd painted exquisite, highly detailed canvases filled with fairies and other magical creatures. In his...

The Mabinogion is based upon a 14th century manuscript known as ‘Red book of Hergest’. The work is a collection of eleven tales of early...

The name of Newgate is notorious in the annals of London’s history. Developing out of a collection of cells in the old City Walls to the...

Back in the 19th century, some books were bound in a particular type of leather. Human skin, sourced from unfortunate and unwilling souls...