Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Jeffrey Sciberras, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Once a year, regular as clockwork, the little snakes slither into the convent for a Feast of the Virgin Mary.
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© Andrew Gray, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.
A self-made man who never forgot his humble beginnings.
Photo by Orrin Dunlap Jr, in ‘Popular Radio’ (1926). Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Baird’s inventions didn’t always work as well as his televisions.
© chris55, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Richard Trevithick’s boss hailed the engineer as a genius. Today he’d have been fired. (Oh, and the train was delayed.)
A widow cast her precious icon into the sea rather than see it dishonoured by government agents, but that wasn’t the end of the story.
© Riannacone, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.
A very unusual monastery with some very unusual protectors.