BlogFlockEveryone knows that the 13 American colonies declared independence from Great Britain on 4 July, right? Well, not quite. It was actually on 2 July that the Continental Congress adopted the independence resolution authored by Virginian delegate Richard…
The archaeological team had gathered, as they often did at the end of a day’s work, at the pub. In front of them on their table at the Ferry Inn in Stromness, the second-largest town in Scotland's Orkney archipelago, a laptop was open.
Hours earlier, they had been about five…
Throughout history, many Scots have harboured a lingering mistrust of the English. Plenty in Wales felt similarly. Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’ who also conquered swathes of land west of his kingdom, must take much of the blame. But the fundamental roots of these tensions stretch back to…
What letter in the English alphabet did Benjamin Franklin think we'd be better off without? Why must the letter U (almost) always follow the letter Q? And what is the point of silent letters? From the first scratches carved into stone to the maddening mysteries of modern English spelling, the…
The buried Roman city of Pompeii was ‘discovered’ in the 16th century, but was it ever lost? In this penultimate episode of our four-part series, Kev Lochun speaks with historian Dr Jess Venner about the years between destruction and excavation.
How did the beleaguered Roman emperor Titus react to the…
As the wife of a founding figure in early American history, Abigail Adams was able to push beyond the restrictions of many of her sex in the 18th century, influencing policy and advocating for those in society who often didn't have a voice. These actions have sometimes seen her remembered…
The United States of America looms large as one of the most powerful countries in the world – politically, culturally, and economically. It dominates headlines, shapes global debates, and through the story of its birth, often presents itself as the natural inheritor of liberty and democracy.
But like any origin…
Hertha Ayrton was an electrical engineer, mathematician, inventor, physicist and suffragette. Born Phoebe Marks in Portsmouth, she was the third child of a Polish-Jewish watchmaker from tsarist Poland and his wife. After passing the mathematical tripos at Cambridge University she went on to register 26 patents, and her…
From divorce settlements and cattle disputes to surprisingly modern ideas about gender and compensation, the laws of Hywel Dda shed unique light on how society functioned, in a turbulent age of rival princes and conquest.
Speaking to Elinor Evans, legal historian Sara Elin Roberts explains the laws often attributed to…
In the clearest proof that toilet humour has always been funny, the oldest-known documented joke in human history is flatulence-based. From 1900 BC, the Sumerians from what is now southern Iraq came up with this proverb: “Something which has never occurred…
1) Find what's true and make it useful. 2) Publish every other Tuesday. 3) Photo cred: my dad.