This week at The Archive we have reached a landmark 78 million pages, as we explore 1995‘s Battle of Britpop, played out between bands Blur and Oasis. We’ve added one brand new title this week, Scottish newspaper the Ellon Times & East Gordon Advertiser, with 441,915 pages added in all over the last seven days. Meanwhile, we’ve updated 26 of our existing titles, from across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Before we move on to take a look at the …
music history
From the 1950s onwards the United Kingdom has produced many extraordinary music icons in the arenas of pop, rock and more. The rise of these British music icons, both bands and solo artists, is chronicled throughout our newspaper Archive. And so, in this special blog, we’ve delved into our Archive to bring you early reviews of Britain’s biggest bestselling music artists. From Shirley Bassey to Duran Duran, from Kate Bush to the Rolling Stones, we’ve picked 42 music icons to …
Tags
This week at The Archive we’ve reached another milestone, as our collection now numbers 77 million pages, and we welcome yet another new newspaper to our holdings, the Peterborough Evening Telegraph. All in all this week we’ve added 272,757 brand new pages, as we use our new title the Peterborough Evening Telegraph to tell the story of the United Kingdom’s first ever victory in the Eurovision Song Contest. Meanwhile, from Buchan to Buckingham, from Halifax to Hemel Hempstead, from Lincolnshire …
Tags
May is the month of that major event in Europe’s (and now Australia’s) musical calendar: the Eurovision Song Contest. Love it, loath it, or patiently tolerate it, the Eurovision Song Contest has been making headlines ever since its first competition, held nearly 70 years ago in Lugano, Switzerland. And now, using British and Irish newspapers from our collection, we take a peak into the annals of Eurovision history, assembling headlines from the first ever contest in 1956 all the way …
Tags
In the 1940s the jitterbug, a type of swing dancing that was pioneered by African American communities in New York during the early twentieth century, took the United Kingdom by storm. The energetic dance, which featured elements of the jive, the charleston, and other swing dances, divided Britain, with it being embraced by those who flocked to dancehalls up and down the country, whilst others viewed it as a morally dangerous American import. In this special blog, using newspapers from …
Tags
American-born jazz age superstar Adelaide Hall (1901-1993) was a Black music legend, who from 1938 onwards made Britain her home. She went on to have a long and successful career in the UK. In this very special blog, as part of Black History Month on The Archive, we will celebrate this jazz age queen who came to Britain and entertained thousands of people via her stage and radio performances, using newspapers taken from our Archive. A Star Is Born To …
Tags
This week at The Archive we are delighted to welcome three wonderful and brand new Welsh language newspapers to our collection, alongside 75,422 brand new pages. Meanwhile, from Holborn to Hornsey, from Nelson to North Middlesex, we’ve updated six of our existing titles from Scotland and England. So read on to discover more about our new and updated titles of the week, as well as to learn about the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1891, the largest of several eisteddfodau …
Tags
This week at The Archive we are treating you to two new newspapers from the North West, as we have added 189,566 brand new pages to our collection over the last seven days. Meanwhile, from Coventry to Croydon, from Leicester to Liverpool, from Westminster to Widnes, we have updated 28 of our existing titles from across the United Kingdom. So read on to find out more about our new North West duo of newspapers, as well as to discover which …
Tags
From the 26th to the 31st August Afton Down on the Isle of Wight was home to one of the largest rock festivals the world has ever seen. With an attendance that surpassed Woodstock the previous year; it is estimated that between 600,000 to 700,000 people flocked to the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. With such large numbers in attendance, all did not go as planned, much like the revival of Woodstock in 1999. The festival was marred by petty …
Tags
‘Sea shanties are having a great vogue right now,’ reports the Leeds Mercury in January 1927. The writer may well have been describing the sea shanty trend of the present day, as the haunting harmonies of traditional sea shanties once again have captured the popular imagination. And one hundred years ago, during the 1920s, sea shanties were also incredibly popular. You could listen to them on the radio, or on your gramophone, and they were even performed by MPs. Sailors turn the capstan …