One of the most audacious rogues in history was Colonel Blood, known as the ‘Man who stole the Crown Jewels’. Thomas Blood was an Irishman, born in County Meath in 1618, the son of a prosperous ...

Important events of 1915, the second year of the First World War, including the first German Zeppelin raid on England, the Gallipoli Campaign and the Battle of Loos. 4 Feb The Germans declare a ...

“Executions are so much a part of British history that it is almost impossible for many excellent people to think of a future without them” – Viscount Templewood, In the Shadow of the Gallows (1951) ...

King James I succeeded the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, becoming the first Stuart king of England. He had already reigned as King James VI of Scotland for the last thirty-six years. Mary Queen of ...

Castles and fortified houses can be found all over Britain. Impressive, oppressive, dramatic, romantic: who built these castles, and why? Many fortified sites started off as Bronze or Iron Age forts, ...

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 ...

Born around 1068, very little is known of Henry’s early life: as the youngest son of William the Conqueror he had never expected to be king. Inheriting the throne from his eldest brother William II, ...

Among many other events, July saw the Second Anglo-Dutch War (pictured above) ends with the peace of Breda. The Dutch acknowledge the loss of Delaware and New Jersey, New Amsterdam is renamed New York ...

Edward I, known by many names including, ‘Edward Longshanks’, ‘Hammer of the Scots’ and ‘English Justinian’, reigned as King of England from 1272 until 1307. Edward I was born in June 1239 at the ...

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the most prominent of English Romantic poets. His personal life however was chaotic, his political views radical and his early death, tragic,.. Percy Bysshe Shelley was ...

On 9th May 1911, The Palace Empire Theatre in Edinburgh was packed with an audience of 3,000 people. They were there to see the spectacular illusions of the world’s most talented and famed magician, ...

A grandson of William the Conqueror, Stephen took the throne on the death of King Henry I. However most of his reign was spent in a bitter civil war between him and his rival for the throne, Henry’s ...