Some years before the Elgin marbles were put on display in the British Museum, rising artist Benjamin Haydon got a sneak preview.

... I heard John Wesley sing. A visitor on the quayside on Sunday May 30th, 1742, would have stumbled into a crowd agape and a determined clergyman singing psalms.

A gentleman travelling home from London by train reached his destination carrying more than he set out with.

Byron felt compelled to set the record straight after it was alleged that he had swum the Hellespont the easy way.

As a young man, surveyor Thomas Telford was a red-hot political activist who yearned for revolution, but admittedly he had read just one book on the matter.

While on tour in Austria, Irish tenor Michael Kelly was introduced to Mozart, and discovered a man of many talents and much kindness.