Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
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.
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© 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.
© Ωριγένης, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Following an appalling atrocity in fourth-century Thessalonica, two strong and determined men refused to back down.
The ten-year-old got away from a royal castle disguised as a bundle of hay.