Scourge of England and France, father of the Great Heathen Army and lover to the mythical queen Aslaug, the legend of Ragnar Lothbrok has enchanted story tellers and historians for almost a millennium ...

On October 6th 1854 the people of Tyneside believed that the end of the world was upon them. In the early hours an explosion occurred which shook the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and its neighbour ...

The year 2011 marked the 350th anniversary of the execution of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England – two and half years AFTER his death.. Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon, a small town ...

The Historia Regum Britanniae, translated as ‘The History of the Kings of Britain’ is a medieval text written by Geoffrey of Monmouth around 1136, and is an account of British history laced with ...

The illegitimate daughter of Captain John Lindsay and Maria Belle, a slave of African origin, Dido Elizabeth Belle's story is ...

During his reign as King of England, as well as Denmark and Norway, Cnut had succeeded in the mission which his father had endeavoured to achieve, to rule over a vast North Sea Empire, united by his ...

King James I succeeded the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, becoming the first Stuart king of England. He had already reigned as King James VI of Scotland for the last thirty-six years. Mary Queen of ...

Mystery, legend and myth surround the Knights Templar, a religious military order of knighthood formed at the time of the Crusades and sworn to defend Christian holy sites in the Holy Land. One of ...

If half the reports of Mabel de Bellême turned out to be true, it was wise not to thwart her; not if you had a mind to staying alive, or keeping your facial features intact, that is. However, once she ...

Common in the highlands, islands and lowlands of Scotland, the prickly purple thistle has been Scotland’s national emblem for centuries. The thistle, which grows to a height of five feet, has no ...

Peaky Blinders, now a hit television programme, may be a fictional story of the Birmingham underworld but it is based on the very real existence of a gang by the same name based in the Midlands in the ...

The South Sea Bubble has been called: the world’s first financial crash, the world’s first Ponzi scheme, speculation mania and a disastrous example of what can happen when people fall prey to ‘group ...