Table Of ContentGREAT
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:"Amazing & Extraordinary Facts about Great Britain" unearths the hidden legends, laws, landscapes, discoveries, adventures and locations that have shaped Britain's compelling, and at times, tumultuous past. Explore how Britain was formed - its geology and climate, the quirky characters and events of
