All Articles

An introduction to the astonishing array of scientific techniques available to the police today to help them investigate crime. Find out how much has changed since the days of Sherlock Holmes! (1,505 words)

The story of Pablo Escobar who graduated from selling marijuana to exporting cocaine and built up a drugs empire that made him more powerful than government ministers. He escaped justice in Colombia for many years but the US wanted to extradite him. (1,920 words)

The sail was a revolution in travelling by water. It meant that boats could go much faster and people did not have to use their strength to push it through the sea. This is the history of its invention and development. (525 words)

There are many books about the First World War and the millions of people who died between 1914 and 1918. This short article tells the story of how it started. (500 words)

Even by modern norms, Mansfield led a shocking life: she had relations with two brothers and became engaged to the younger one when the older had rejected her; and she couldn't live with or without her husband. This is the story of her brief, stormy and very creative life. (1,400 words)

Early in the seventeenth century, Sweden was a great empire and had one of the strongest armies in the world. The king wanted the biggest and best ship too but his wonderful new ship sank after sailing about 1,000 metres. (415 words)

In Persia, more than a thousand years ago, people developed the game of chess and encouraged the young to play it because they believed it helped them to think. It is a game where chance plays no part but you need a very good memory. A brief history of Chess. (640 words)

Wine comes in many different forms. Red, white and rosé, even ‘green’ wine, are all popular. For the wine lover, a good bottle is not only a drink, it is an art, perfection in a bottle. Wine has been been used in different ways for many years. This is wine's history (1,675 words)

When he was young, Stevenson was a disappointment to his family. He did not follow his grandfather and father into engineering, never worked as a doctor after studying medicine and did not share their Christian beliefs. However, during his short life he was, and is, a great success as a writer and was happy in love. (1,180 words)

The Kennedy family is a political dynasty in America. J. F. Kennedy was the much-loved President who was assassinated in the early ‘60s and his younger brother, Bobby, shared the same cruel end. Perhaps, Teddy Kennedy might well have become President but a strange incident involving the death of a young woman prevented him doing so. (1,315 words)

In many cities, like London, pigeons are seen as a pest but people and pigeons have a long history together. They were used to send messages and race over long distances and people still pay high prices for the most beautiful and fastest specimens. (1,170 words)

The Lusitania was an British ocean liner that the Germans sank in the First World War in 1915. More than 1,000 passengers, including women and children, many of them American, died. Two years later, it was part of the reason the USA entered the First World War. (515 words)

Yerba mate is a drink which originated in Latin America. It was so popular with the Catholic monks who came to the continent to spread their religion that they made the local Indians rich. But people were jealous of the Indians’ ability to grow the trees and a terrible war began. (920 words).

The twentieth century was a difficult time in South-east Asia: there was the Japanese war against China and many other countries; the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the terrible civil war in Vietnam. Then, towards the end of the century, the leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia had millions of his own people killed in just three years. (725 words)

Trofim Lysenko cared more about his career and fame than he cared for science or for his people. He caused the deaths of many scientists who argued that he was wrong and let hundreds of thousands of people die of hunger. So, how did this scientist stay at the top of his profession for so long? (1,190 words)