Dundee Courier | The British Newspaper Archive Blog - Part 2

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6 terrible love tips from history’s lonely hearts

Lonely hearts columns aren’t a modern phenomenon. Search our historical newspapers and you’ll find numerous examples of ‘matrimonial advertisements’ from the 1800s and 1900s. The notices can often make for amusing reading. We’ve collected together a few of our favourites to provide you with some tips for finding love. You may or may not want to take the advice…   1) Be overly specific and insulting An American woman advertised for a husband in 1920, advising that he ‘can have

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1914’s must-have Christmas gift: the ‘British-made’ toy soldier

Today’s most-popular Christmas toys include Frozen dolls and tech gadgets, but it was a very different story 100 years ago. Newspapers from the time reveal there was a clear trend for ‘British-made’ military toys in the year that Britain joined World War One.   Daily Mirror – Friday 04 December 1914 Image © Trinity Mirror. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. View the whole newspaper page The ‘Great Miniature Battle’ of 1914, with trenches and barbed wire An

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The British Newspaper Archive is 3 years old

It’s hard to believe, but The British Newspaper Archive has now reached the grand old age of three. We launched on 29 November 2011 with 4 million fully searchable historic newspaper pages and have come a long way since then.   Please click the image to enlarge it   A treasure trove of information You can now search more than 9 million pages, from over 300 British and Irish newspaper titles, spanning 1710-1954. Reading all of those pages would be

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11 unusual tales of terror from historical newspapers

What the giant monster might have looked like in 1877

The British Newspaper Archive is full of grisly stories about the unusual and the unexplained. We’ve selected some of the oddest tales, including a description of a monster with the head of a sea lion and a rumour that Germany was turning dead soldiers into explosives during the First World War. Let us know if you’ve found a story to rival these. You can comment below or post on our Facebook page. 1) 1877: A bizarre 70-foot beast A very strange creature

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The Dundee Courier reports biting in a football match

Uruguay’s Luis Suarez has hit the headlines once again, having been accused of biting an Italian player during last night’s World Cup match. The British Newspaper Archive can reveal that biting isn’t a modern phenomenon in football matches. An article describing Sunderland football team’s experience in Germany has been discovered by one of our customers in a copy of the Dundee Courier from 1913.   100-year-old Dundee Courier reports that ‘biting is allowed’   The Dundee Courier included a shocking report

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Family tree research: How newspapers can help

Newspapers are a fantastic resource for family history research. They can reveal incredible details about your ancestors.   View 3 newspaper articles for free   You’ll find millions of pages from local British and Irish newspapers at The British Newspaper Archive. They date from the 1700s to the 1950s. Register a free account and the first three newspaper articles you view are on us.   Create a free account     Find a photo of your ancestor   Lisamarie has

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Hull City play Arsenal in the 1930 FA Cup semi-final

The FA Cup final on Saturday 17 May 2014 will see a showdown between Arsenal and Hull City. This is the first time Hull have reached the final. Hull City’s greatest achievement in cup competitions up to this point was in 1930, when they reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup. Rather strangely, they also faced Arsenal in that match. The British Newspaper Archive is a great place to research football history as you’ll find original match reports and reactions

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