Tuesday, 23 December 2025

He failed to destroy the powerful enemies he made, and they therefore destroyed him

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Paul was not the first ruler of Russia to suffer from paranoia, nor would he be the last . But unlike his more ruthless predecessors he fail...
Monday, 22 December 2025

The archives of the Irkutsk criminal court record at least one murder every day

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The drinking dens and gaming tables of Irkutsk were as notorious in eighteenth-century Russia as those of Deadwood would become in nineteent...
Wednesday, 26 November 2025

What possessed a nineteenth-century inventor to replace the simple Anglo-Saxon plug with this complex mechanism of ratchets and rods

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Upstairs, an hour later, I wondered for the thousandth time why the French prefer such a complicated system to drain their bathwater. What p...
Tuesday, 25 November 2025

‘Not all of them,’ insists Vincent, when I mention this. ‘Only the pretty ones.’

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Vincent [Leflaive], on the other hand, could never be mistaken for other than he is. His shabbiness in the vineyards at vintage time is that...
Sunday, 23 November 2025

Louis XI, cunning and cold, secretly financed the Swiss to attack his rebellious subject

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Gazing at this map [of Charles the Bold’s territories], Burgundian children must have marvelled at the extent of Charles’s vast domain, stre...
Saturday, 22 November 2025

He fears him more than the Russians

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‘Loulou Carillon’s father is afraid Mitterand will take away all his vineyards – he fears him more than the Russians. In the first round, ei...

The Royal Oak is the third most common pub name in Britain

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Oak Apple Day was declared a public holiday by parliament, and its official celebration continued until 1859. The date is still celebrated a...