Amazing and Extraordinary Facts about Great Britain PDF
Preview Amazing and Extraordinary Facts about Great Britain
GREAT BRITAIN STEPHEN HALLIDAY CONTENTS The Making of Britain An Island Nation? Britain’s continental connection Going to Extremes A land of contrasts Meet the Ancestors Britain’s first immigrants United by Geography, Divided by History? England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland The Tongue That Straddles the Globe The pre-eminence of the English language Hundreds of Years of Hurt Britain’s beautiful game: football Extraordinary Places A Hitler Among the Scousers Liverpool attracts all sorts Want to Relocate Your Old Capital City? Just call Boadicea My Horse for Your Daughter? Fair trading at Appleby’s horse fair The Second City of the Empire Glasgow’s green spaces and curry houses Ancient Essex Man a Devout Breed The oldest churches in Britain Fractious French Exchange Programme Prompts Foundation of Britain’s Oldest University Oxford’s dreaming spires The Scottish Missionary Position Cross-roads of early British Christianity Linenopolis to Metropolis Belfast’s Titanic shipbuilding feats ‘The Very Ramparts of Heaven’ Ancient Lincoln in need of repair Wales’s Hidden Treasure-Trove Local boys done good, too Water Way To Have A Good Time Boating at altitude Pulling Out The Stops Alfred the Great’s old organ Dodgy Handshakes and Umpteen Takes Rosslyn hits the limelight Shells of the Non-Collectible Variety Scarborough takes a pounding from the sea Sixty Warriors to the Square Inch Scones for afters? Morning Campers! The bracing charms of Skeggy Cambria Ne’er Can Yield! Sieges of Harlech One-Way Ticket to The Eternal Underground Woking: gateway to the Gods Oldest and Oldest Berrow’s Worcester Journal The Venice of the West (Midlands) The birthplace of British industry Tearing Down the Walls Derry’s identity crisis – all in the name of religion The Heart of the British Film Industry Ealing in black-and-white The Underground Church Resting place for a poet and a heroine Kings, Queens and Princes Murderer Assassinated by Shakespeare The Princes in the Tower Chariots of Ire The revolting Boadicea Medieval Myth or Real Romano-British Resistance Fighter? King Arthur’s Round Table Wessex Warrior The life and times of Alfred the Great The Importance of Being ‘Unraed’ Aethelred and Canute in need of better advisers Prince of Wales Bowled Out Wayward Hanoverian son checks out in style The Bard Comes Down Hard on the Thane of Glamis Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy: the Scottish Play Robert the Bruce Bides his Time Destiny of Scotland not set in stone The Guardian of Scotland William Wallace — ‘Braveheart’ The Tragic Catholic Cousin of the Virgin Queen Mary, Queen of Scots Placid Cymru? Welsh princes: a quarrelsome lot William Conquers his Coronation Day Nerves Beating the Christmas rush at Westminster Abbey From Playboy Prince to Contemptible King George IV: double-chinned son of a lunatic Eminent Surgeons Save the Day with Acid, Scalpels and Cigars World’s first appendectomy a success for new king Two Divorces, One Abdication and a Trip to See Hitler The Scandals of Edward and Mrs Simpson ‘Who Will Rid Me of this Turbulent Priest?’ Henry II bashes a bishop in the name of the law Summary Execution, Cambridge University and Bloody Civil War What did England’s worst kings do for us? Oliver Who? The Welsh ‘unknown’ who won the Battle of Naseby A Grave End for Pocahontas Native American princess unimpressed by Britain British Food and Drink Protein, Carbohydrate, Salt and Fat Fish and Chips: Britain’s culinary gift to the world You Are What You Eat Dieting to death: a Stark choice You’ve Never Had It So Good Medieval peasant food The Best Thing Since Sliced Flour and Water The story of British bread Nice Cold Ice Cold Milk Good for infants, depressed students and disease transmission ‘Wine Is But Single Broth; Ale Is Meat, Drink and Cloth’ The British love of good beer The Water of Life Whisky: the Celtic tipple of choice Forget Toothpaste: Clean Your Teeth With Sugar In defence of the sweet stuff Mashed-up Organs Boiled in Guts, Anyone? A natural history of the haggis Prostitutes Allegedly the Most Beautiful Women in Britain In other news, potatoes cause leprosy Gathered by Virgins The British love affair with tea Seeking a Healthy Balanced Diet? Go to War Lake District ordeal for Nobel prize-winner Marmite for the Masses! The National Birthday Trust Fund Disease and Death in the Pot and Bottle Detecting fraudulent and deleterious adulterations Champagne: Made in Britain! But called ‘fizzy wine’ for copyright reasons Mother Nature’s Bountiful Harvest The ripe realities of early recycling Keeping Up With The Cromwells Mrs C: a fine cook and a better haggler Britannia Rules the Waves Thanks to Pickled Cabbage Scurvy and the French Navy defeated by British grocers British Government: Politics, Money and the Law Tories and Whigs Bandits and covenanters Speak Up Mr Speaker! The historical reluctance to answer back The King’s Jews William the Conqueror’s heritage and the Jewish community in Britain The Poll Tax Ignore history at your peril Father of English Literature Swaps Quill For Shears Chaucer’s woolly stockin-trade Morton’s Fork The crafty cardinal and the lost monasteries Stamping Out the Smugglers British efforts to prevent trade in untaxable contraband Pitt’s Pictures and Daylight Robbery A window into revenue-generation William Pitt Strikes Again Income tax: just a temporary arrangement, right? Swamps and Midges Spread Diseases Scotland declared bankrupt chasing an American dream The South Sea Bubble Bursts Prototype financial crisis caused by investments no-one understood That’s Got to Hurt Punishments of the Infamous, Pecuniary and Corporal varieties Anything But Prison Incarceration or the army The Bloody Code The unexpected risks to impersonating a pensioner Extraordinary Britons The Great Outlaw The many faces of Robin Hood Will the Schoolmaster? Shakespeare’s lost years ‘A Certain Flush With Every Pull’ Inventing the lavatory Curiosity Killed the Cat Francis Bacon felled by frozen chicken Brain of Britain The genius of Isaac Newton Doctor Pox Edward Jenner’s gamble All Steamed Up Who really invented the steam engine? Half Nelsons Horatio the family man ‘Such a Damned Fool’ The Iron Duke’s affairs Chip Off the Old Block
Description:The list of books you might like
