Does Dickens invented our Christmas?
Thanks to his seminal 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens is often credited with inventing winter festivities as we...
29/11/2011
CULTURAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY
William Wilberforce’s Mission for Humane Rights
In the late 1700s, when William Wilberforce was a teenager, English traders raided the African coast on the Gulf of...
04/11/2011
Did the Scottish mass-murdering cannibal Sawney Bean actually exist?
According to most accounts, Alexander “Sawney” Bean was a Scottish farm labourer born in about 1530 in Galloway. Soon after...
09/10/2011
The Pirates Were Never Say That
Brace yourself for a barrage of “salty dogs,” “scallywags,” and “swabbies.” Monday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a...
29/09/2011
The Samurai: A Short History
Japan has a history that dates back thousands of years. Scientists believe the Japanese people descended from many groups that...
23/09/2011
Queen Elizabeth I’s Fashions
In theory what one may wear is governed by “Acts of Apparel”, detailed regulations with the force of law. Thus...
13/09/2011
The Brief History of Prosthetic Medicine
The Egyptians were the early pioneers of prosthetic technology. Their rudimentary, prosthetic limbs were made of fiber and it is...
21/08/2011
Jesse Owens: The Hero of the Games
James Cleveland Owens was born in Oakville, Alabama, on September 12, 1913, the son of a sharecropper, a farmer who...
07/08/2011
What is the right way to teach history in British schools?
Everyone has an opinion about history in schools. Andrew Marr and Terry Deary certainly do. But it doesn’t follow that,...
03/08/2011
The world’s first video game
The world’s first video game, OXO, was invented in 1952. As the title suggests, it was simple tic-tac-toe, and you could...
17/07/2011