Of all the popular heroes of the English people, none has ever achieved an equal name and fame with Robin Hood. For more than six hundred years, songs and ballads of this famous outlaw have been familiar on the lips of the peasantry. Kings and princes have been forgotten, but not Robin Hood and his […]
According to many sources Arthur was King of the Silures in the 6th century and an ancient British hero, whose story has been the theme of much romantic fiction. He is said to have been the son of Uther, chief commander of the Britons, and to have been born about 501. In 516 he succeeded […]
Science has been a driving force behind the evolution of the modern world. British scientists have made immense contribution to the different fields including physics and biology. Isaac Newton is considered by many to be one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. He developed the […]
A national poet must be known by the people of his nation. Shakespeare has now been allowed the last word in honours — his head on the same stamp as the queen’s. Only Dickens has peopled our imaginations with anything like so many types. Macbeth is part of our image of what guilt is, just […]
There was a lot of excitement in a fishing village in Yorkshire one morning. Jimmy Cook, the grocer’s boy, had run away to sea. “He was always talking to the fishermen,” said one woman. “Yes,” said another, “And I’ve seen him at Whitby port many times. He liked to watch the ships and such like.” […]
William Harvey, a son of a rich merchant, was born at Folkestone, England, in 1578. Will, as he was called in the family, had six younger brothers and two sisters. They were affectionate to each other, though a little afraid of the father, who was very strict. In 1588, when Will was ten, he was […]
Early years The great English scientist Isaac Newton was born in the little village of Woolthorpe, not far from the old university town of Cambridge, on December 25, 1642. His father, a farmer, died before his son’s birth. Little Isaac was left to the care of his mother, uncle and grandmother who sent him to […]
James Watt was born on January 19, 1736, at Greenock in Scotland, where his father was a shipwright. Jamie, as his parents called him, was not at all strong. He suffered from terrible headaches and this was naturally a great handicap to him both in play and later in work. He could not start his […]
Smallpox was quite usual in the past, and it took millions of lives. It killed people in Asia and Africa, and it was a terrible illness in Europe too. Beginning with the 15th century, Europe was like a great smallpox hospital in which more than one and a half million people died every year. At […]
The man whose name is connected with the first railway is George Stephenson. He is often called “The Father of Railways”. George Stephenson was the son of a poor English worker who lived eight miles from Newcastle. Stephenson’s father worked twelve hours a day for twelve shillings a week, and on that very low wage […]
