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British History

P&S History


Quizzes

Queen Elizabeth II at 90

2016 marks Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday and to celebrate we've made a quiz! How much do you know about the longest reigning monarch? Test your knowledge with our quiz!

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Beneath the Big Top

Beneath the Big Top is a social history of the circus, from its ancient roots to the rise of the 'modern' tented travelling shows. A performer and founder of a circus group, Steve Ward draws on eye-witness accounts and contemporary interviews to explore the triumphs and disasters of the circus world. He reveals the stories beneath the big top during… Read more...

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British Music Hall

'The music hall ...had no place for reticence; it was downright, it shouted, it made noise, it enjoyed itself and made the people enjoy themselves as well.' W.J. MACQUEEN POPE Music Hall lies at the root of all modern popular entertainment. With stars such as Marie Lloyd, Harry Lauder and Dan Leno, it reached its glorious, brassy height between 1890… Read more...

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The Victorian Guide to Sex

An exciting factual romp through sexual desire, practises and deviance in the Victorian era. The Victorian Guide to Sex will reveal advice and ideas on sexuality from the Victorian period. Drawing on both satirical and real life events from the period, it explores every facet of sexuality that the Victorians encountered. Reproducing original advertisements… Read more...

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T. E. Lawrence and the Red Sea Patrol

Although many books have been written about T E Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, none before has fully explored the pivotal role of the Royal Navy in the Red Sea at the time. This is the first book to be written about the Navy's role in the success of the Arab Revolt in the creation of the legendary figure of Lawrence of Arabia. Following extensive and… Read more...

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The Sinking of RMS Tayleur

'The moment they fell into the water the waves caught them and dashed them violently against the rocks, and the survivors on shore could perceive the unfortunate creatures...struggling amidst the waves, and one by one sinking under them.' (Hereford Times, 28 January 1854) The wrecking of the RMS Tayleur made headlines nearly 60 years before the Titanic.… Read more...

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Breach of Promise to Marry

'The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were invited. The day came but not the bridegroom...' While Dickens' embittered spinster Miss Havisham stopped all her clocks on her wedding day and 'never since looked upon the light of day', the reality was much brighter for thousands… Read more...

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Death in the Theatre

"A richly entertaining account of tragic theatre accidents and murders most foul. If theatre walls could talk, what secrets would they reveal? Chris Wood provides fascinating answers with tales of brawling ushers, murderously jealous husbands, stampeding crowds and infant tragedies. A meticulously researched and vivid collection of lives lost in the… Read more...

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Famous Last Words

Nothing focuses the mind more starkly than impending death. Its inevitable spectre greets us all; from princes to paupers and nobility to the needy. Prepare to mount the scaffold and share in the final utterings of the condemned; join the stricken in their death beds and witness unburdened tongues wag their closing, and often remarkable confessions… Read more...

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Heartbeat and Beyond

In 1968 a group of young people took over a derelict trouser factory in a rundown part of Leeds and set about producing programmes that were to define the British television world of the late 20th Century. These included the investigative documentary series First Tuesday, Darling Buds of May, Whickers World, Dont Ask Me and Heartbeat. At the same time… Read more...

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Mary Ann Cotton - Dark Angel

A female thief, with four husbands, a lover and, reportedly, over twelve children, is arrested and tried for the murder of her step-son in 1872, turning the small village of West Auckland in County Durham upside down. Other bodies are exhumed and when they are found to contain arsenic, she is suspected of their murder as well. The perpetrator, Mary… Read more...

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Angel Meadow

'It is all free fighting here. Even some of the windows do not open, so it is useless to cry for help. Dampness and misery, violence and wrong, have left their handwriting in perfectly legible characters on the walls.' - Manchester Guardian, 1870 Step into the Victorian underworld of Angel Meadow, the vilest and most dangerous slum of the Industrial… Read more...

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Brutus of Troy

Just who did the British think they were? For much of the last 1,500 years, when the British looked back to their origins they saw the looming mythological figure of Brutus of Troy. A great-great-grandson of the love goddess Aphrodite through her Trojan son Aeneas (the hero of Virgil's Aeneid), Brutus accidentally killed his father and was exiled to… Read more...