On 20 July 1969, two American astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, landed on the moon, thus becoming the first two humans ever to walk on the lunar surface. These first steps were watched by an estimated audience of 650 million viewers worldwide, as the Apollo 11 mission became a veritable global media sensation. But how was the moon landing reported on by the British media? As part of space and the stars month here at The Archive, we have collated …
Science
This July at The Archive we are exploring all things space and the stars, and what better way to begin this exploration than with a look at six trailblazing women astronomers from history. From the first woman to discover a comet (Caroline Herschel), to the first woman to be appointed Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (Margaret Burbidge), we will explore the stories of six women astronomers from history, from the 1700s through to the 2000s, using newspapers taken from our Archive. …
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What began as rumours from Spain was soon to become a nightmarish reality, as the Spanish flu pandemic began to take hold in the United Kingdom, where it would go on to kill approximately 250,000 people, and 50,000,000 globally. Staff from the Michie Hospital | Graphic | 26 July 1919 In this special blog, as part of medicine month on The Archive, we will take a look at how newspapers from the time reported on the deadly disease, from those first rumours, …
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We’ve scoured The Archive to bring you some of the most dubious medical remedies from our newspapers. From magic cure-all pills to blood-letting, from cigarettes to liquorice, we take a look at some of the most bizarre cures from the last two centuries, using pages taken from the British Newspaper Archive. The Graphic | 8 April 1922 It might go without saying, but we thought we better say it anyway – please do not try any of these cures at home! …
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In 1796 British doctor Edward Jenner demonstrated how infection from cowpox gave rise to immunity from smallpox. This led to the first vaccination in history and represented the first step in the total eradication of smallpox, the only human disease to ever be totally globally eradicated. Edward Jenner | Illustrated London News | 27 January 1923 With vaccination again hitting the headlines during the COVID-19 pandemic, we set out to discover how Edward Jenner’s contemporaries reacted to his groundbreaking vaccination method, and …
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This week we are continuing to bring you the best of what The Archive has to offer – and this week’s highlights have a particularly nautical flavour. For this week marks 200 years since HMS Beagle was launched, the famous ship upon which naturalist Charles Darwin travelled, and later wrote about, his experiences on the voyage helping to form his theory of evolution. Charles Darwin | Illustrated London News | 1 April 1982 Read on to discover how we used The Archive to retrace …
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40-year-old Mary Ann Cotton was arrested in West Auckland, County Durham, in 1872 after her stepson, Charles Edward Cotton, was found to have been poisoned by arsenic. During the nineteenth century, arsenic was readily available and could be bought, unregulated, from most grocers. In this special blog, using pages from the British Newspaper Archive, we explore the crimes of Mary Ann Cotton, and how arsenic played a deadly role in everyday life. Want to learn more? Register now and …
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The 1920s were a decade of firsts and innovations, and many of the things we take for granted today have their roots in this eventful decade. From televisions to fridges, from roller coasters to Branston Pickle, from crosswords to death rays, we take a look at just a few of the brilliant and bizarre inventions that stemmed from the 1920s – using advertisements and articles from the British Newspaper Archive. Want to learn more? Register now and explore The Archive …
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This week we have added 88,734 brand new pages to The Archive. We are delighted to welcome a trio of new Scottish titles, as well as updates to eight of our existing titles. We bring you new publications this week from three corners of Scotland. First up, we have added the Kilmarnock Herald and North Ayrshire Gazette, a weekly local newspaper published every Friday in the historic burgh of Kilmarnock. Kilmarnock has many claims to fame; it was where Robert Burns’ first book …
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Each month, we will examine the newspapers from 100, 75, or 50 years ago and pull out the top headlines as well as the lesser known events from our villages and towns. This month we found stories from the ongoing First World War, a career criminal, a modern Don Juan, tips for housekeeping, and more. War-Promotions On this day, in 1917, the front page of the Illustrated London News displayed the faces of the British generals who received promotions in the …