‘That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also’ – Heinrich Heine (1797 to 1856) In most university towns of Nazi Germany on the night of 10 May 1933, Nazi-supporting students burned over 25,000 books that were deemed to be ‘un-German’. This bonfire of books followed on from the proclamation of ‘Action against the Un-German Spirit’, which had been declared on 6 April 1933. To mark this very dark day, here are two newspaper …

‘All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust’ – JM Barrie Sir James Matthew Barrie, the son of a weaver who wrote ‘Peter Pan’, was born in ‘Thrums’ (aka Kirriemuir) on 9 May 1860. There are some wonderful stories about J.M. Barrie in the Archive. To celebrate the day of his birth, here is a fascinating, wee story about how he almost became a financial writer in London, reporting on doings in the city – Barrie says …

John Stuart Mill, one of the giants of philosophy during the nineteenth century, died in Avignon on 8 May 1873, aged 66. Stuart Mill is probably most famous for his writings on liberty and the freedom of the individual against control by the state. He was also an advocate of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. To commemorate the day and to remember the life of John Stuart Mill, here is a newspaper tribute to Mill, which was …

Newspaper review of ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’, August 1913 On 6 May 1856, Sigismund Schlomo ‘Sigmund’ Freud was born in the town of Pribor, which was then located in the Austrian Empire. To mark the day, here is a newspaper review from 1913 of Freud’s classic work, ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’. Evening Telegraph – Tuesday 12 August 1913 Image © D.C.Thomson & Co. Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000563/19130812/159/0006

An obituary of Napoleon from 1821 and a also report of the autopsy Napoleon Bonaparte died at Longwood, Saint Helena, on 5 May 1821 – he was aged 51. As you can imagine, the obituaries carried in the UK newspapers in 1821 were less than complimentary to the former emperor. This first clipping shows the obituary that ‘The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal’ published on Friday 10 August 1821. Below that is a short newspaper clipping from the time when the news started to …

We do love the quirky stories in the Archive! Here is a wonderful description of a bicycle accident in 1895 between George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, while on a  cycling trip with Sidney Webb to Tintern Abbey. Their minds were taken up with loftier concerns and they ended up crashing into one another – happens to the best of us, that. Sheffield Independent – Friday 20 September 1895 Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000181/18950920/085/0008 Derby …

After Napoleon was exiled to Elba in April 1814, Louis XVIII returned to Paris and became king. Louis fled France during the Revolution and, when Louis XVII (his nephew) was guillotined, Louis proclaimed himself to be the ‘King in Exile’. While in exile, Louis actually wrote to Napoleon to ask him to restore the monarchy. Napoleon replied: ‘You must not expect to return to France. It would mean marching over a hundred thousand corpses.’ Here’s a newspaper article from May …

On the 2nd and 3rd of May 1923, John Arthur MacReady and Oakley G. Kelly flew non-stop from New York to San Diego in California, thus becoming the first people to fly across the USA without stopping en route. In the 27-hour flight, they covered 2,800 miles at an average speed of just over 100 mph. To mark their historic achievement, here are two newspaper reports about their pioneering flight. Aberdeen Journal – Saturday 05 May 1923 Image © THE …