What was a revolt by Indian soldiers, or sepoys, against their British officers and rulers in 1857. One of the immediate causes was the issue of new cartridges. These were believed to contained the fat of cows, sacred to Hindus, and of pigs, which Moslems regarded as defiling. In May eighty-five sepoys at Meerut were court-martialled for refusing to use …

A Norwegian, Fritdjof Nansen, had the idea of building a ship that would be lifted up by the pressure of ice forming around it. It would then drift northwards with the floes, where no ship had ever been before. His famous ship the Fram was the result. He sailed it to northern Siberia and it drifted exactly as he had …

When John Cabot’s ship reached the Newfoundland coast in 1497 he was amazed at the fantastic amount of fish existing in those waters. His account of the vast quantities of cod that could be caught simply by lowering a bucket over the side and scooping them up soon brought fishermen of other countries to the area. When Jacques Cartier explored …

One of the immediate causes of the American War of Independence (1775-83) was a conflict between the British Government and the American colonists over taxes imposed by the British. Tea was one of the things taxed. On 16 December 1773 Samuel Adams, a political leader of the colonists, presided over a mass meeting of Boston townsfolk. ‘This meeting’, he announced, …

Because of continental drift, the world’s surface is always changing. About 300 million years ago, there were two continents. One, called Gondwanaland, contained parts of South America, Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica, which were then joined together. The other, called Laurasia, was made up of North America and Eurasia. About 275 million years ago, Gondwanaland and Laurasia collided and joined …

Efforts to ease the restrictions on the motor car culminated in an Act of Parliament which became effective on 14 November 1896. It laid down that ‘locomotives’ of less than three tons, unladen, were regarded as ‘light’ and were exempted from the need for an attendant to walk in front. At one time the attendant had to carry a red …

Near the River Deben in Suffolk, at Sutton Hoo, are eleven mounds or ‘barrows’ dating back to the 7th century. In 1938 it was decided to open the largest of these to find out what it contained. The result was the greatest archeological discovery ever made in Britain. Within the barrow was a king’s ship, 25 meters long, and, inside …

An important development in the story of armour was the introduction of flexible garments made of numerous small metal rings which interlocked like chains, known as ‘mail’. The coat of mail remained in favour for five centuries. A complete tunic of armour made of mail contained up to 200,000 iron rings. During the Crusades in the twelfth century, knights wore …

A treadmill was an apparatus of punishment used in prisons. It was a large hollow cylinder, rather like the wheel of a water mill, with twenty-four steps. Each prisoner held on a bar in front of him and kept on treading on the steps, thus making the cylinder revolve. The machines were used for pumping or grinding, or simply as …

The London bus of the 1880s, drawn by two horses, was nicknamed ‘knifeboard’. Those adventurous passengers, usually agile and male, who climbed to its top deck had to sit back-to-back on a long narrow board. The accommodation was rough and some wag soon named the bus ‘the knifeboard’ after the rough emery boards on which cutlery was cleaned until the …