The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened on 19 March 1932. While reading through the newspaper stories about the grand opening, though, our eyes were caught by this shocking report (published on the day before the bridge opened) about the plan to throw the Premier of New South Wales into the river. Clearly, this was a very strange, Antipodean variation on the traditional method of opening a bridge by simply cutting a ribbon. Thankfully, it never happened, and the bridge was …
To celebrate St Patrick’s Day, here are some stories (and a cartoon) from the Archive about the origins and history of the national saint of Ireland and, just for good measure, a story that explains the history of the shamrock. Register today and discover history as it happened
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We’re BIG fans of etiquette at the BNA. And we’re also big fans of bicycles, too. So we were fascinated by this letter about the etiquette of bicycling, published in ‘The London Daily News’ in 1887. What can we say but ‘plus ca change’… | London Daily News – Friday 02 September 1887 Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000051/18870902/031/0006
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We like the light-hearted approach towards the ‘Ides of March’ that has been imaginatively employed by advertising copywriters over the years. We noticed a number of Ides-themed adverts, but especially liked this advert that herds together a forum-bound Caesar, some of his ‘colleagues’ and the soothsayer, in order to sell Scotch whisky. Indeed, we think we’ll be posting more of these erudite adverts, as we stumble across them on our journeys through The Archive.. | Western Daily Press – Tuesday …
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Newspaper reports and advertisements about the Ides of March Here’s another interesting piece on the Ides of March which, perhaps rather gloomily (depending on how you look at things), informs us that the Romans considered the 15th of every month as the Ides. So, emperors could not rest on their laurels for the rest of the year once March was out of the way – they had to be careful in the forum all through the year. Luckily, the Victorians had …
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There’s no need to beware the Ides of March, advises Professor Chickwick… |
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Karl Heinrich Marx, author of ‘The Communist Manifesto’ and ‘Capital’, died in London on 14 March 1883. To mark the day, we’re sharing a newspaper report of his death and a report on his funeral and burial at Highgate Cemetery. We do wonder about the story regarding Marx and Engels almost dying in the Tay Bridge Disaster in 1879. The story goes that they had planned to travel on the ill-fated train while on a lecture tour in Scotland, …
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We were watching a TV programme on BBC4 last night about preserving heritage in the UK, and learned from this programme that Sir John Lubbock (a leading figure in the heritage movement during the Victorian and Edwardian eras) had a pet wasp. So, well, we were quite struck by this story. I mean, we’ve sometimes seen them in pet shop windows before, but have never gone in to ask if they make good pets, how much they cost, will they …
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At Kennington Oval on 12 March 1881, Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 victory over England. This was Watson’s first cap for Scotland, and he is generally considered to be the first black footballer to play (and captain) at international level. So to commemorate the day for this famous son of Guyana, Scotland and Queen’s Park, we thought we’d post a newspaper match report of this historic game. | Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Monday 14 March 1881 Image © …
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The winter of 1946-47 was certainly a bad one. They had to send out search parties for missing trains and bus/train travellers were often stranded overnight (as happened in SE England last night). We’ve been reading about this epic winter in the Archive, and were amazed to see that flame-throwers were considered as a possible solution (and some tests were even carried out!) to counter the snow and ice. | Hull Daily Mail – Tuesday 11 February 1947 Image © …