Leap Day Stories To celebrate Leap Day (or ‘intercalary day’ or ‘Job’s Birthday’, as it’s also known), we’ve been looking through the newspaper archive to read about some of customs that are/were traditionally observed on this day. Perhaps the most famous Leap Day tradition is that of ‘The Ladies’ Privilege’. Similar to ‘Sadie Hawkins’ Day’, [...]

To mark St Valentine‘s Day, we thought we‘d post some historical newspaper stories on our Facebook pageabout how the Eve of the Lupercalia (aka the 14th of February) was celebrated in the 19th Century.   Valentine Days in the 19th Century It‘s fascinating to see how the tradition of sending valentines ebbed and flowed during [...]

Celebrate Charles Dickens’ 200th Birthday with the British Newspaper Archive To herald the bicentenary of Charles Dickens‘ birthday, we are today launching a new 7 Day Credit Package to help you to make full use of your time researching in the archive. The new package is 7 days (600 credits) for the bargain price of [...]

The British Newspaper Archive Newsletter: New Features and Your Top Searches Two months have passed since the British Newspaper Archive (BNA) was launched in late November 2011. How time flies! We’re delighted to announce some new site features. New Features on the BNA Website Search Term Highlighting Our development team have been working hard to [...]

Old Newspaper Stories from Previous Hogmanay and New Year‘s Days With time’s winged chariot parked half on the pavement and New Year‘s Day just about to knock on the door and first-foot us all, we thought it‘d be a good time to post some ’On this day‘ Hogmanay and Ne‘erday stories on our Facebook page. [...]

Christmas Stories from the British Newspaper Archive With Christmas Day nearly here, we thought we‘d gather together some Christmassy stories from the newspaper archive and post them on our Facebook page. The Christmas Truce of 1914 The first batch of stories in our Christmas gallery is newspaper reports of the impromptu truce that took place [...]

Stories of Rare Beauty Abound in the British Newspaper Archive Welcome to the first edition of the British Newspaper Archive e-newsletter. Although extremely busy scanning 8,000 old newspaper pages a day, the Stakhanov-like workers at the British Library’s Colindale site still endeavour to pick out stories of great historical interest, quirkiness, humour and tragedy. Life’s [...]