From which king does King’s Cross in London derive its name?
In 1830 a monument was erected to the memory of the recently deceased George IV at the junction of Gray’s Inn Road, Pentonville Road and what is now Euston Road. It was 60 feet high and...
My mother says that when she lived in Bath in the 1960s, a few women living there were convinced that they were medieval Albigensians reincarnated. Can you tell us any more about this?
This concerns psychiatrist and author Dr Arthur Guirdham (1905–92), who wrote books on extra-sensory perception and reincarnation. In the 1960s he was a consultant at an NHS clinic in Bath, but...
Who was ‘The Flying Duchess’?
Mary, the wife of the 11th Duke of Bedford, became known in the press as ‘The Flying Duchess’ when she learned how to fly a plane in the late 1920s. She was already in her sixties when...
“The gunfight at the OK Corral was a major gun battle”
Despite being immortalised in numerous novels and movies, the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, that occurred around 3pm on the afternoon of Wednesday 26 October 1881, only...
Is it true that Francis Drake discovered a cure or a medicine to fight scurvy?
A debilitating disease caused by vitamin C deficiency, the scurvy was once the scourge of seamen on long voyages. As they travelled the globe in search of new lands, sailors faced abominable living...
Who was ‘The Black Mozart’?
‘The Black Mozart’ is a nickname given to the 18th-century French musician and composer Joseph Bologne, also known as the Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
Bologne was born in the French colony of...
The Graf Spee was scuttled off Montevideo. Is it still there?
It is. One of the most famous German battleships of the Second World War, the Graf Spee was
sunk on 17 December 1939 in the river Plate outside Montevideo in Uruguay. Facing what he thought to be...
Was Richard III a hunchback?
The evidence for Richard III being a hunchback is at the very least dubious. During Richard’s lifetime no sources, even the hostile ones, claimed this, although you could argue that no one...
When were film trailers first shown and why are they called ‘trailers’ when they come before the film rather than trail after it?
One of the first film trailers appeared in New York in 1913 and was the brainchild of Nils Granlund, an innovative marketing manager for the Marcus Loew chain of movie theatres who went on to become...
Who was the first ever teenage heartthrob?
Very debatable – you can argue this one all you like, so let’s get things started…
How about Goethe? His Sorrows of Young Werther was the first work of art to market self-pity to...
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