Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Tony Esopi, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Heracles shows his capacity for thinking outside the box, but spoils it by trying to be just a little bit too clever.
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By Konstantin Korovin (1861-1939), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
In 1553, Richard Chancellor set out on a perilous voyage to Russia in order to bypass the Hanseatic League’s customs union.
© Гондарева Илга (Ilga Gondareva), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Hapless extremists try to wipe out a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary.
Via Wikimedia Commons.
The future hero of Waterloo dealt with political ambush as comfortably as he dealt with the military kind.
© Jakub-Hałun, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
A young man from the Italian city on the Adige River demonstrates that class has nothing to do with wealth.
By Jules Girardet, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
English lawyer Sydney Carton goes to the guillotine in place of a French aristocrat.