Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Markus Trienke, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Twenty teams of dogs ran a life-or-death race against time over Alaska’s frozen trails to bring medicines to desperately sick children.
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By John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
A cat moved home from Edinburgh to Glasgow and seemed to settle in nicely, but it turned out she was only biding her time.
© Sara Raymer, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
The Russian Consul in New York issued a stern rebuke to those trying to break Britain’s ban on slave-trading by sailing under his nation’s colours.
Attributed to Reginald Grenville Eves (1876–1941), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Britain’s first qualified female doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, had a message for the first women to study for London University’s degree in medicine.
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Only months after kidnapping the Duke of Ormond, Irish radical Thomas Blood was at it again, this time attempting to steal the Crown Jewels.
By Isaac Robert Cruikshank (1789–1856), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Karl Philipp Moritz described three kinds of criminal in Georgian England, from the gentlemanly cutpurse to the deadly footpad.