Science & Technology

John F. Bailey describes how all early navigators, until the mid-eighteenth century, were baffled by the problem of longitude in finding their ships’ position.

Throughout his long life, including his years in Russia, Ribeiro Sanches kept in touch with ‘Men of Reason’ in many European countries.

Hilda Hookham introduces an astronomer prince who was a grandson of Tamburlaine.

M.J. Tucker describes how, although he may have looked rather like a medieval miser, Henry VII attracted to his Court some of the best minds of the Renaissance

From the fourteenth century until the building of the railways, writes D.J. Rowe, the Newcastle keelmen were indispensable and pugnacious carriers between collieries and sea-going ships.

Meyrick Carre introduces James Howell; an enquiring disciple of the new astronomers who enlivened the British seventeenth-century scene, and ended his life as historiographer-royal to Charles II.

C.G. Cruickshank describes bows and fire-arms in the early sixteenth century.

Stuart Andrews describes how the founder of Methodism shared the encyclopaedic concern with science that characterizes the eighteenth century.

A.F. Tilley explains how the Greeks propelled their boats.

George A. Rothrock describes how the age of Enlightenment was eager for secular, rational explanations of the world, and welcomed the scepticism of Diderot’s contributors.