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British History

Why Shipbuilders Were Forced to Stop Using British Oak

After the Napoleonic Wars caused a shortage of British Oak, frigate builders looked all over the empire for an alternative. They found one in India

The winning design features an 180-foot, 200-ton steel column jutting out of the Northumberland hillside at a roughly 30-degree angle.

British Aristocrat Commissions 180-Foot Monument Celebrating Elizabeth II’s Reign

The Third Viscount Devonport has chosen sculptor Simon Hitchens to bring the Elizabeth Landmark to life

The ghost of a bagpiper is rumored to haunt the caves below Culzean Castle

Cool Finds

Hidden Medieval Door Leading to Smugglers’ Caves Discovered Underneath Scottish Castle

Culzean Castle, a towering fortress overlooking the cliffs of Ayrshire, sits atop a labyrinthine network allegedly used by smugglers, ghosts and fugitives

Monks likely used the disc-shaped gaming board to play Hnefatafl, a Norse strategy game that pits a king and his defenders against two dozen attackers, during the 7th or 8th century

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Unearth Medieval Game Board During Search for Lost Monastery

Scotland’s oldest surviving manuscript, the Book of Deer, was written by monks living in the Aberdeenshire monastery

The new book tells the tale of Tuor, a man living in an age where the world is dominated by the dark lord Melko—known in other Tolkien books as Morgoth.

Trending Today

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Final Posthumous Book Is Published

The author tinkered with and rewrote The Fall of Gondolin, one of his first tales of Middle-earth, many times during his career

How the British Navy Camouflaged Their Ships Using Art

The British Navy knew it couldn’t completely disguise a ship to protect it from attack during WWI. So they turned to ‘Dazzle Painting’

Pottery and mosaic tiles found at the Yorkshire site.

Cool Finds

Silver Coins Lead to One of the Earliest Roman Sites in Yorkshire

The dig site found by metal detectorists 3 years ago appears to be a high-status homestead that once had two villas

Captain James Cook set out on a voyage across the Pacific 250 years ago, seemingly on a scientific voyage. But he carried secret instructions from the Navy with him as well.

Captain Cook’s 1768 Voyage to the South Pacific Included a Secret Mission

The explorer traveled to Tahiti under the auspices of science 250 years ago, but his secret orders were to continue Britain’s colonial project

Upturned under mysterious circumstances, the flagship vessel sank to its undersea grave with roughly 500 innocents—and one ship dog, a mutt dubbed Hatch—trapped within

New Nanotech Returns Henry VIII’s Favorite Warship to Its Former Glory

Researchers used tiny magnetic particles to remove the iron ions responsible for the wooden vessel’s decay

An artist's rendition of Sheffield Castle

Archaeologists Are Excavating Sheffield Castle, One-Time Prison of Mary, Queen of Scots

The Scottish queen spent 14 years imprisoned at the medieval stronghold

The Whitechapel fatberg is a massive clump of congealed fat, wet wipes, diapers and miscellaneous waste

You Can Now Watch the Whitechapel Fatberg’s Decay on Livestream

The toxic clump of sewage oil and waste housed at the Museum of London has, so far, changed colors, ‘sweated,’ hatched flies and grown yellow pustules

Researchers studied the cremated remains of between 10 and 25 individuals interred at Stonehenge

Why Did the Welsh Bury Their Dead at Stonehenge?

Study suggests cremated remains found at the site belong to outsiders who may have brought stones from Welsh quarry, aided monument’s construction

New Research

Did George Orwell Pick Up TB During the Spanish Civil War?

A new technique was able to pull tuberculosis bacteria and morphine residue from a letter the author sent in 1938, ten years befor his diagnosis

The Royal Library where the bill was found

The Prince Who Preordered Jane Austen’s First Novel

The future George IV was a big fan of the author, a feeling she half-heartedly reciprocated with a dedication years later

Cool Finds

1,000-Year-Old Handprint From “Europe’s Lost People” Discovered In Scotland

The mark was left by a Pictish coppersmith at Swandro, a site in the Orkney Islands that is quickly washing into the sea

The Cairns Broch site in Orkney, Scotland

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find 2,000-Year-Old Wooden Bowl, Strands of Hair in Northern Scotland

The Iron Age artifacts were sealed in a subterranean chamber of the Cairns Broch, a tower-like stone structure

Cool Finds

Drought Reveals Giant, 4,500-Year-Old Irish Henge

The circular structure in the Boyne Valley was discovered by drone photographers searching for signs of hidden Neolithic sites

New Research

Germany’s “Stonehenge” Reveals Evidence of Human Sacrifice

Archaeologists uncovered the remains of 10 women and children who may have been sacrificed at the Pömmelte enclosure, a 4,300-year-old Neolithic circle

This painting by Louis-Nicolas Van Blarenberghe, court painter of battles to France’s King Louis XVI, depicts the 1781 formal surrender of the British army at Yorktown, Virginia. The original is at the Palace of Versailles. This secondary version was created in 1786 for French General Comte de Rochambeau, the commander of the French forces at Yorktown

The American Revolution Was Just One Battlefront in a Huge World War

A new Smithsonian exhibition examines the global context that bolstered the colonists’ fight for independence

Cool Finds

Now That the Smog Has Lifted, Astronomy Returns to London’s Royal Observatory

A new telescope that filters out light pollution and interference will watch the stars from the site constructed in 1675

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