British History

Potter envisioned Hill Top as a living testament to rural tradition. Its artifacts, from crockery to rustic furniture, are reproduced in her drawings.

Britain's Lake District Was Immortalized by Beatrix Potter, But Is Its Future in Peril?

Shepherds and ecologists are butting heads over what's next for the beloved landscape

A gun manufacturer in Birmingham in the 19th century.

How British Gun Manufacturers Changed the Industrial World Lock, Stock and Barrel

In ‘Empire of Guns,’ historian Priya Satia explores the microcosm of firearm manufacturing through an unlikely subject—a Quaker family

An illustration from the 1820 edition of The Governess, a popular work of children's literature written by Sarah Fielding.

The First Novel for Children Taught Girls the Power of Reading

Nearly three centuries before heroines like Katniss and Meg Murray, Sarah Fielding published a book on the values of female education

Donald Sutherland stars as John Paul Getty.

The True Story of “Trust,” Yet Another Interpretation of the Getty Kidnapping

Writers of the FX program have a much different spin than the recent movie on the same subject matter

Mid-19th Century specimens collected in Latin America by Alfred Russel Wallace include parrot wings and marsupial pelts.

The Great Feather Heist

The curious case of a young American’s brazen raid on a British museum’s priceless collection

Artifacts Stolen in Massive Archaeological Theft Recovered in Canterbury

Police have recovered most of the 2,000 coins, bones, beads and other items lifted from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust in January

How the Battle of Jutland Pushed Britain to the Limit

Going into World War I, the British Navy tasted success for well over a century. By 1916, they finally had an adversary that would test their abilities

A team is working to conserve a collection of iron cannonballs found on The Mary Rose, Henry VIII's famous Tudor ship.

To Save Cannonballs on Henry VIII's Flagship, Researchers Looked to X-ray Tech

The more than 1200 cannonballs found on <i>The Mary Rose</i> are facing a major problem—corrosion

Monster Fatberg Goes On Display at London Museum

The mass clogged the sewer under Whitechapel last year with 820 feet of solid grease, fat and dirty diapers

Founders of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst. The group's motto was "deeds, not words," Marshall writes in his blog.

Photographs Documenting the Struggle for Women's Suffrage Are Reimagined in Full Color

Colorizer Tom Marshall's deft touch brings new life to 100-year-old photographs

Women stand in gutter for a poster parade organized by the Women's Freedom League to promote the suffrage message.

Stories of Forgotten Suffragettes Come Alive in New Exhibition

The Museum of London's "Votes for Women” show marks 100 years since women were first granted the right to vote in Britain

Figure skating at the Olympic winter games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 1936

A Brief History of Women’s Figure Skating

You might be surprised to learn that this sport where women now shine was initially seen as solely the purview of male athletes

The ochre "crayon"

One of the World's Oldest "Crayons" Colors in Details of the Mesolithic World

An interdisciplinary team of archaeologists and physicists came together to discover the purpose of the ancient bit of sharpened red ochre

The 910-carat diamond discovered in Lesotho

World's Fifth-Largest Diamond Found in Lesotho

The 910-carat gem is a D-color, type-IIa stone, meaning it is completely colorless and has no visible impurities

Excerpt from Folio 5 recto from the Book of Deer.

Possible Remains of ‘Lost’ Monastery Discovered in Scotland

The elusive monastery is associated with the Book of Deer, which contains the oldest-surviving examples of Scottish Gaelic writing

Her Majesty the Queen with archive footage

Sixty-Five Years Later, the Queen Recalls Her Coronation

New Smithsonian Channel special has rare Queen Elizabeth II interview and offers a closeup of the Crown Jewels

York Minister's Massive Medieval Stained-Glass Window Restored to Its Former Glory

Conservators spent some 92,400 hours cleaning and protecting the great east window's 311 panels

The gold and silver coins in the Hoxne hoard, found in Suffolk, date to the end of the Roman Empire in Britain at the start of the 5th century A.D.

A Search for a Lost Hammer Led to the Largest Cache of Roman Treasure Ever Found in Britain

Today, archaeologists are still debating just how old the hoard is—and what it tells us about the end of the Roman Empire in Britain

These Letters Tell the Inside Story of Mary, Queen of Scots’ Imprisonment

A collection of 43 letters relating to the latter years of the queen’s confinement was recently donated to the British Library

A YMCA gym in 1910.

The YMCA First Opened Gyms to Train Stronger Christians

Physical fitness was a secondary goal for the movement

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