Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Preventing the German fleet from breaking out into the Atlantic in 1916 should have felt like victory, but it felt like defeat.
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© Leandro Neumann Ciuffo, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.
In 1910, Constantine Zervakos, a young monk from the Greek island of Paros, found himself charged with espionage.
© Fanny Schertzer, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.
John Heathcoat’s lace-making machine created thousands of jobs, and gave ordinary people clothes they could never have dreamt of.
South African settlers of Dutch descent could not escape the march of the British Empire.
Shortly after Askold and Dir founded Kiev in 862, they launched a brazen but ill-fated assault on the capital of the Roman Empire.
© Michael E. Cumpston, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Sir Mulberry Hawk’s coarse conduct towards Kate Nickleby has awoken a spark of decency in Lord Frederick Verisopht.