Ragnar Lothbrok, Erik Bloodaxe and Harald Hardrada are a trio of legendary Viking warriors. Towards the end of their careers, each man sailed his longships upriver to Jorvik, or York. Not one of them ...

Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent – the 40 days leading up to Easter – was traditionally a time of fasting and on Shrove ...

Electricity: it is impossible to imagine the modern world without it. Simply turn the switch on and it works, but how is it ...

There have been many reincarnations of London Bridge since the original Roman crossing in AD50. The most famous and longstanding of these was the “Old” Medieval bridge, finished in 1209 during the ...

In March 1987, the ferry The Herald of Free Enterprise sank off Zeebrugge with the loss of 188 lives. This great tragedy occurred because the roll-on/roll-off ferry had sailed with its bow doors open, ...

For centuries the Highlanders of Scotland had eked out a living for themselves and their families by cultivating a small stretch of land for which they paid landlords rent, a practice known as ...

Having failed in their attempt to gain support in England and advance on London, the Jacobites had retreated all the way back to Scotland and besieged the government forces under the command of Major ...

In 1645 during the latter stages of the First English Civil War, a Royalist (Cavalier) army under the command of General George Goring was attempting a tactical withdrawal from Langport to the safety ...

With the town under siege, Sir Thomas Fairfax marched to its rescue ahead of a 5,000 strong force of Lincolnshire men. Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron On the 25th January the ...

The last major engagement of the Wars of the Roses took place at the Battle of Stoke Field, near the town Newark in Nottinghamshire. Although the Yorkist King Richard III had been killed at the Battle ...

During the 15th century struggle for power between the rival houses of Lancaster and York, the First Battle of St Albans marked the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. During the 15th century struggle ...