How Has The Bayeux Tapestry Survived for So Long ?
Feb04

How Has The Bayeux Tapestry Survived for So Long ?

The Bayeux Tapestry tells one of the most famous stories in British history. It has survived revolution, war, clumsy restorations and even ‘kidnapping’ and has been threatened with destruction at every turn of these events. So how has it survived for nearly 1,000 years?

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4 Acts of Kindness that Changed History Forever
Feb15

4 Acts of Kindness that Changed History Forever

It can often seem that history books are packed with marauding royals, dishonest politicians, warring nations and murderous plots. However, history is also full of examples of kind and good gestures. In this article we look at 4 acts of kindness and bravery that have changed history forever.

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English Words that Used To Have Vastly Different Meanings To What We Understand Today
Jul10

English Words that Used To Have Vastly Different Meanings To What We Understand Today

How would you rate your vocabulary ? Average; Better than Average ; Exceptional ?
It may not matter how good you think your command of English is because in this article we reveal some surprising revelations about some of the words, you may have thought you had a thorough understanding of, had, in point of fact, some VERY different meanings in the past.

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Reading Ancient ‘Unreadable’ Texts Lost for Centuries
Aug18

Reading Ancient ‘Unreadable’ Texts Lost for Centuries

Any Bibliophile will appreciate, or at least empathise (if you’ve never had the opportunity), the exquisite pleasure of gazing upon an ancient book or scroll and reading the words engraved on its pages hundreds or thousands of years ago.

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The Warrior Monks Who Brought Banking to London
Jul18

The Warrior Monks Who Brought Banking to London

Today, London is the financial capital of the world and for good or ill the hub of global banking and finance. How banking started in the capital is every bit as intriguing and mysterious as the ways that modern international finance seems to work today. Basically we owe it all to a religious order of heavily armed warrior monks who set up London’s first bank some 900 years ago.

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Why did Europe Colonise the New World and not the other way around ?
Sep02

Why did Europe Colonise the New World and not the other way around ?

Why did Europe Colonise the New World and not the other way around ? – according to a bold theory put forward by anthropologist Jared Diamond – The answer may be linked to the shape of the continents which meant that Europeans had more advanced technology and worse diseases than Native Americans.

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The First Cities
Jul12

The First Cities

Thursday July 12 2007 was a seminal day (apparently). On that day the a United Nations report, that coincided with World Population Day, revealed that for the first time in history, more people were now living in cities than rural areas. But how did this come about ? In this artice we look at the key argricultural and technological developements needed for this to happen.

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How did Bread become a staple food in the West ?
Jul05

How did Bread become a staple food in the West ?

Bread has not always been the staff of life, certainly not in the West. Today however bread & bread products are our staple foods. Life without it would be unthinkable. So how did our most basic and yummy of foods develop ?

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Nursery Rhymes – Origins & History III
Dec27

Nursery Rhymes – Origins & History III

Behind every nursery rhyme is a history and story that’s every bit intriguing as the rhyme itself : Three Blind Mice; Mary Mary Quite Contrary; Pease-pudding Hot; Little Miss Muffet; Little Jack Horner

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Mayans, Incas & Aztecs – The South American ‘Classical Age’
Dec03

Mayans, Incas & Aztecs – The South American ‘Classical Age’

The people of medieval Europe were aware that there were other magnificent cultures and powerful rulers apart from their own in the near and far east. However they had no idea that west across the Atlantic, beyond the setting sun, there lay a vast continent where there flourished civilizations of unimagined wealth and brilliance, comparable with Europe’s own classical age of Greece and Rome.

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Are You a Luddite?
Sep06

Are You a Luddite?

Are you a Luddite ? .. A term coined over 200 years ago.. Read on to see if you are (although the chances are that you aren’t, given that you’re using a computer to read this article on the internet)

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The Railway – Not just for Choo Choos
Sep03

The Railway – Not just for Choo Choos

If you thought that the railway was invented along with the steam locomotive then you’d be wrong. Railways existed long before steam, long before even the birth of Christ.

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The Origin of Writing
Aug30

The Origin of Writing

Writing – The invention that enabled science and knowledge to flourish. However it seems that is wasn’t invented for prose or love poems or literature but for the more mundane and prosaic task of taxation and bookkeeping.

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Sark – A Potted History
Aug02

Sark – A Potted History

In this article we have a whirlwind look at the history of one of the most enigmatic of the Channel Islands, Sark.

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The Invention of Money – A Short History
Jul30

The Invention of Money – A Short History

From prostitution to dealing on the stock exchange, trading has been around for tens of thousands of years. But when did mankind move from a barter system to exchanging goods for bits of metal and paper ?

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