The illegitimate daughter of Captain John Lindsay and Maria Belle, a slave of African origin, Dido Elizabeth Belle's story is ...

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 ...

Edward of Woodstock was born in – unsurprisingly – Woodstock, on June 15th 1330. He was the eldest son of King Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, but alas he never actually became king, dying one ...

Henry VI was just nine months old when he came to the throne, an infant destined for power and glory but would he be able to live up to the task? A contrasting figure to his father King Henry V, the ...

Mystery, legend and myth surround the Knights Templar, a religious military order of knighthood formed at the time of the Crusades and sworn to defend Christian holy sites in the Holy Land. One of ...

Common in the highlands, islands and lowlands of Scotland, the prickly purple thistle has been Scotland’s national emblem for centuries. The thistle, which grows to a height of five feet, has no ...

The word “clann” comes from the Gaelic and means children, and its members claimed kinship from the common ancestor whose name they bore, and even the poorest clansman considered themselves of nobler ...

When Jewish persecution is discussed by historians, the Holocaust is almost always mentioned. The Holocaust eradicated 6 million Jews, reducing Europe’s pre-war Jewish population of 9.5 million in ...

The hobby of collecting cigarette cards is known as Cartophily. These cards were originally given away in cigarette packets as a marketing gimmick, primarily to encourage people to buy more cigarettes ...

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 ...

Perhaps you have seen the award winning film – which was nominated for 12 Oscars – now you can view the original transcript of the King’s Speech, which was sent to Scotland Yard in 1939, announcing ...

From the World Heritage Site of Hadrian’s Wall to the lesser known villas and amphitheatres that once dotted the land, Britain has a surprisingly large amount of Roman ruins that can still be visited ...