The First English National Lottery
Alan Haynes describes how, in 1567, permission for the holding of ‘a very rich Lottery General’ was granted by English government.
Feature
Bart’s Hospital
St Bartholomew’s was refounded in the reign of Henry VIII. Courtney Dainton describes how, for nearly two centuries, it was one of only two major hospitals in England for the care of the general sick.
Medieval Hospitals of England
In England, medieval hospitals flourished until the beginning of the 15th century, funded by taxes, tolls, and wealthy doners.
Cyrano de Bergerac: Poet, Philosopher and Swordsman
Mildred Allen Butler offers a profile of a renowned swordsman, student of philosophy, literary critic, social satirist and story-teller; Cyrano de Bergerac expressed his views of life in his ingenious account of expeditions to the Empires of the Sun and Moon.
Cycling Eighty Years Ago
David Rubinstein describes a change in social habits when the new bicycle replaced the old Penny Farthing.
A Royal Patrimony: The Prado Museum and Spanish History
Jan Read traces how Spain's people, their royals, and their most famous museum have developed together.
How Football was Born
The enduring legacy of the sport’s pioneers.
The Case of the Slave-Ship Zong
Robert Weisbord describes the shocking events that took place on an 18th-century British slaver.
The Great Frost Fair of 1683-4
For nearly 400 years, London's citizens poured down from the streets to hold a frost fair upon the solid ice of the Thames.
Soviet Nuclear Testing in the Arctic
During the Cold War, 224 nuclear weapons were denotated at Novaya Zemlya in the Soviet Union’s remote Arctic north. Only with the collapse of the USSR in 1989 did the true scale become known.