This is something that everyone uses at least once every day! But about a hundred years ago soap was so expensive that only very rich people could afford it. Soap is made from different fats and oils. We import these oils from other countries, as we need coconut and olive oils and whale fats, as well as some other animal …

Everyone needs salt to stay alive: It’s absolutely essential to our system, and found in most of the foods we eat. Britain alone produces ounce is used up! In fact, we need salt so much that when a group of criminals in Sweden were once given the choice to do without salt for a month, as an alternative to capital …

Coal is something which we all need in some way or other. We need coal to produce heat and light for our homes and offices; our industry needs coal to provide many commercial and household goods to export all over the world. Different types of coal are often found in a coalfield. There are ‘coking coal’, for instance which, when …

Imagine a journey that takes you a billion kilometres away from earth, to the edge of the solar system, from where you can look back over your shoulder and see our sun as just another star in the sky. We are not talking about a science fiction movie but the Voyager space mission. On August 20, 1977, the Voyager 2 …

Legions is a military term that has been used since ancient times. In early Rome the ‘legion’ was a levy of citizens marching to war, or, in other words, a citizen army. As conquests grew, Rome needed more men and Legio came to denote a force of four to six thousand heavy infantry supported by a cavalry contingent and light …

This is the name by which ancient people knew the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow body of water which connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. One of the pillars is Gibraltar. The other massive promontory lies across the Strait on the African coast (probably Mount Acho, just east of Ceuta). The Strait is about 58 km long, and …

If we define a robot as a machine that works like a human being, then the first robots were automata: remarkable moving dolls that could copy human actions, sometimes with amazing facility. For example, one could write a whole sentence using a pen and ink. Automata were made in the 1700s. They worked by clockwork and contained very complex system …

The story of the battle of Troy is told in Homer’s poem the Iliad. About 1200 B.C. a huge, hollow, wooden horse was felt outside the great walls of the mighty city of Troy. Inside, a group of armed men lay hidden. For nine years Troy had been besieged by the Greeks. It appeared they had now abandoned the siege, …

Screech owls are typical owls (Strigidae) belonging to the genus Megascops. The species name Kennicotti was created in honour of American explorer and naturalist Robert Kennicotti. It was officially called Kennicott’s Owl. Twenty-one living species are known at present, but new ones are frequently recognized and unknown ones are still being discovered on a regular basis, especially in the Andes.

The year 1860 is the United States as the year that saw the birth of the Pony Express. The opening up of the West brought the need for faster and faster communications, and the Pony Express riders carried the mail at breakneck speed. They were young men chosen for their light weight, horsemanship and powers of endurance. They had light …