Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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487

A Match Made in Stockton

The modern match is ignited by friction, a simple idea but one which had not occurred to anyone until 1826, when a Stockton pharmacist dropped a stick.

488

Massacre at Amritsar

After one of the worst outrages in modern British history, Winston Churchill stood up in the House of Commons to label the Amritsar Massacre an act of terrorism.

489

My Heart’s Right There

The British Tommy’s fondness for ‘Tipperary’ exasperated some of his countrymen, but ‘Alpha of the Plough’ thought it showed proper English spirit.

490

To-Whit, Tu-Whoo!

The mournful owl in her Sussex garden so troubled A. G. Gardiner’s friend that she rarely visited her house in the country.

491

The Lost Colony of Roanoke

In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh’s first attempt to found an English colony in the New World failed, but two years later he was keen to try again.

492

The Man Who Mapped the Moon

In 1609, Englishman Thomas Harriot turned his new-fangled telescope on the moon, and sketched for the first time the face of another world.