Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
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© Robin Stott, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
On a countryside ramble in West Sussex, William Cobbett finds the weather turning against him.
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© Dennis Jarvis, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 generic.
In 1692, a girl of fourteen was left to defend her father’s manor from angry Iroquois raiders.
© Mike Edwards, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
On the Feast of St John the Baptist, June 24th, 1497, Venetian navigator John Cabot claimed North America for the King of England.
By Richard Caton Woodville (1856-1927), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem about a suicidal cavalry charge during the Battle of Balaclava on October 25th, 1854.
© LMarianne, via the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Richard Cobden deplored the way that politicians in Britain justified their wars abroad by portraying other countries as barbarous and backward.
By Elizabeth Thompson (1846-1933), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Britain’s fear of Russia led her to attempt regime change in Afghanistan, but it cost many lives and damaged the army’s reputation.