The mastermind behind the infamous Gunpowder Plot was not Guy Fawkes, but Robert Catesby. Guy Fawkes was just the fall guy ...

Previously known as New Amsterdam and formerly in the hands of the Dutch, in 1664 the settlement, now known as New York, ...

In 1900, there were over 11,000 hansom cabs on the streets of London alone. There were also several thousand horse-drawn buses, each needing 12 horses per day, making a staggering total of over 50,000 ...

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, ...

“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 ...

Who are the British? Do they really drink tea, eat roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and never leave home without an umbrella? Find out more about true Brits; past and present, myth and legend, fact ...

The UK now celebrates National Curry Week every October. Although curry is an Indian dish modified for British tastes, it’s so popular that it contributes more than £5bn to the British economy. Hence ...

The Victorian Workhouse was an institution that was intended to provide work and shelter for poverty stricken people who had no means to support themselves. With the advent of the Poor Law system, ...

There have always been fashion ‘tribes’, from fops and beaux, bucks and dandies to Goths and punks, but the ‘macaronis’ of the 1760s and 1770s exceeded them all in their dedication to excess and ...

“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 ...

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 ...

St Dunstan was a prominent English religious figure during the Anglo-Saxon period and became a significant advisor to many of the kings of Wessex, helping to initiate monastic reforms and influence ...