In December 1920 the world’s first illustrated weekly news magazine the Illustrated London News delved into the ‘curiosities and ingenuities‘ of the Patent Office, featuring some of Britain’s most unusual rejected patents. Illustrated by the publication’s own artist W.B. Robinson, the Illustrated London News presented a series of the bizarre designs that had been submitted to the Patent Office, but had since ‘lain dormant.’ We at The Archive were keen to delve into our collection’s cabinet of curiosities, and these …
inventions
This week marks another incredible milestone here at The Archive – we have reached an amazing 60 million newspaper pages all available to search as part of our collection, just seven months after we reached the 50 million mark. To celebrate this marvellous milestone, we have added a grand total of 592,776 brand new pages to The Archive this week, with 12 brand new titles joining us from England, Ireland and beyond. Indeed, this week marks the first time we …
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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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There are 100s of different flavours of old newspaper stories about ice cream (including secret recipes…) to be found in The British Newspaper Archive. But did you know that on 23 July 1904, Charles Menches had a ‘Eureka!’ moment, while watching people eat ice cream at the World Fair at St Louis? Read this fascinating story about the invention of the ice cream cone – 108 years young today! Hull Daily Mail – Tuesday 29 December 1931 Image © …