The following is an excerpt from the chapter "Looking for Lafcadio" in my book "Matsue, Seven Walks Through Seventeen Centur...

Today, the BBC put an article on its website concerning the first bungee jump from Clifton Suspension Bridge. This reminded me of another a...

It is the hundredth anniversary of the start of the First World War, and on Sunday 28 June 1914 the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. I w...

Keio University in Tokyo is one of the most prestigious in Japan. It’s also the oldest seat of further education, being able to trace its ro...

Dr Livingstone was an English explorer who, in the late 1860s, went missing in Africa. He was presumed still alive and still doing his work ...

In late March 1932, newspapers carried reports about an Argentine ship named the S.S. Chaco that was carrying a large number of criminals. T...

Today I found a book on-line called A Chronological Outline of the History of Bristol . I read it and before too long I’d found a recommende...

Almost every new endeavour, in fields such as science, art, or music, has gone through a period of mistrust from more established experts. I...

I’ve heard it said that the law about driving on the left in the UK began at London Bridge. Because it was so congested a thoroughfare, the ...

The idea of a lawyer who starts arguing against his own case may sound like a character from a bad sitcom, but it occurred at least once in ...

Boxley Abbey, which once stood in Boxley in Kent, once hosted a religious icon called the Rood of Grace (“Rood” being an old word for crucif...

This is an except from the Memoirs of Hannah More, from a letter dated 2 Feb 1779, and it describes the difficulty that the writer Hannah Mo...

The other day, I was looking through some old newspapers, trying to find contemporary material about the ownership of the Falkland Islands, ...

King Louis XVI of France was executed on Monday 21st January 1793. News of this act of revolution quickly (by the standards of the day) spre...

On the 3rd May 1875 a steamship, the Kynance was rammed in "thick weather" at four in the morning off St Ive's Head by an unid...