Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© GdML, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
The experienced nurse could not stop saving lives, even at the cost of her own.
Read
From the Athens War Museum collection, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
On October 28th, 1940, the Kingdom of Greece surprised everyone by refusing to become part of the German war machine.
© Finoa Avis, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Two of Heracles’s labours are declared void, so to make up the number he is sent to find the Garden of the Hesperides.
From the Chronicle of John Skylitzes, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
The young Roman Emperor Theophilus backed away from marriage to the formidable Cassiani, but he could not forget her.
From the British Library, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Two young English princes were banished to the court of Yaroslav the Wise, and one returned to claim the crown.
From the Gospels of Henry the Lion (12th century), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
For a hundred years after William the Conqueror came to England, four strong women named Matilda shaped the nation’s history.