Science & Technology

Arsenic was a hidden killer in Victorian homes, but it also played a large part in the British economy. Which comes first: commerce or public health?

Over the 18th and 19th centuries Britain’s economy, technology, and society were transformed by the so-called Industrial Revolution. Why?

‘Who is the most underrated person in history? Tupaia, the Tahitian navigator and translator who enabled James Cook to reach Australia and New Zealand’

On 5 March 1936 the prototype Spitfire made its maiden flight. Its creator R.J. Mitchell would not live to see its finest hour.

In The Tree Hunters: How the Cult of the Arboretum Transformed Our Landscape, Thomas Pakenham reveals the discoveries of Britain’s buccaneering botanists.

November 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the first passenger trains between London and Paris. What does the history of the Channel Tunnel tell us about Britain’s relationship with its neighbours?

An enfant terrible shook up Renaissance medicine by denouncing experts and debunking accepted wisdom. Was Paracelsus as radical as he seemed?

In the 18th century the existence of extraterrestrial life went from debatable hypothesis to fundamental tenet of Enlightenment thought.

The Literary and Philosophical Society was once ubiquitous, allowing minds to meet and views to collide. Their disappearance has left more questions than answers.

The people of late medieval and early modern England were almost universally numerate. Is our ability to count the thing that makes us human?