England Biography

Peaky Blinders is a popular BBC television series about an organized crime family in post-World War I Birmingham, England, but does this series depict the factual history of Birmingham? As it turns out, there were Peaky Blinders in Birmingham, and they terrorized those streets long before World War I. The Peaky Blinders rose to prominence in the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of late Victorian Birmingham in the 1870s. Their ranks were composed of the working poor.

Exactly 100 years ago, a sensitive woman naturalist, nature lover, and accomplished artist began to chronicle all that she encountered while walking and cycling around the countryside of her native England and neighboring Scotland.

Henry VIII, King of England and Ireland in the first half of the 16th century, is one of history’s most famous monarchs for many reasons. He ruled ruthlessly, was quick to cry “treason!” and execute, and equally quick to fall in and out of love. Henry changed the religious fabric of England forever and left his mark on the wider world - but what of the six women he took as his queens? From the regal and capable Catherine of Aragon to the patient and generous Katherine Parr, Henry’s wives represented a range of personalities, goals, beliefs, and influences on the king.

Was mögen die großen Königinnen und Könige dieser Welt wohl gedacht haben? Wie gingen sie mit der Freiheit, die sie in eine für uns kaum vorstellbare Gefangenschaft trieb, um - und was machte das Leben, dass sie führten mit ihnen? Diese Novelle unternimmt den Versuch in die Gedanken der wohl bekanntesten Tudor-Königinnen einzutauchen und lässt die Leserinnen und Leser in das einzig freie Gut Elisabeths blicken. Begonnen beim Tod ihrer Mutter, bis zu ihrem Tod selbst erleben wir Elisabeth einmal vollkommen anders.

When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied.

Beginning in 1786, Captain John Meares of Great Britain bravely explored the North Pacific, but his attempt to dominate the fur trade between the Northwest Coast and Asia was frustrated when the Spanish navy seized his ships off Vancouver Island. Meares missed the opportunity to explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca or discover the Columbia River. Hence, he was almost a hero.

Michael Faraday is regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern physics. His work in the field of electromagnetism revolutionized society, leading to new avenues of study and developments of technology that would leave the world changed forever. Without Faraday’s discoveries, there would be no electronics or electrical power. There would be no technology as we recognize it, or at the very least those technologies would have taken much longer to arise, causing our time to look very different.

John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce suffered lifelong opposition and endured for the causes of gospel truth, missionary zeal, and political justice. They found, in solid doctrine and humble joy, the tough roots for habitual tenderness in response to their adversaries - without doctrinal or moral flinching. They are examples of remarkable grace. In the third book of the Swans Are Not Silent series, best-selling author John Piper looks at the lives of these three great men and how they not only endured great opposition but did so with joy and without bitterness.

12 is the propulsive story of this gritty comeback. It's a drama that unfolds in the locker room, the court room, and under the brightest lights in all of sports - the Super Bowl. Now for the first time, listeners will have an exclusive look into Tom Brady's experience and the NFL's shocking strangle-hold on their players. With unprecedented access to Brady himself, his teammates, and his lawyers, we will see just how a football legend went up against one of the largest corporations in the world to stage the greatest comeback in NFL history and emerge a god of the gridiron.

From a near paralyzing mountain bike crash, to an attempt to caddie, and finally playing some of the most famous courses in Southwest England, this book is one person's year of setbacks and his efforts to forcibly escape them in hilarious, precarious, and somewhat victorious fashion. This book has become such a passion project for me that I decided to narrate it myself.

In a riveting daily diary, written in his trademark ebullient style, Salmond takes us into the heart of the YES campaign, revealing what was said and done behind the scenes as the vote reached its nail-biting climax. He explains how the YES campaign energised the entire Scottish nation and rewrote the rulebook for grassroots political campaigning, not just in the UK but throughout the world.

Aside from being one of the greatest political essayists in the English language and author of two of the most famous books in 20th century literature, George Orwell was a man of many fascinating contradictions, someone who liked to go against the grain because he believed that was where the truth usually lay. George Orwell: English Rebel takes us on a journey through the many twists and turns of Orwell's life and thought.

The never-before-published diaries of Alathea Fitzalan Howard - who spent her teenaged years living out World War II in Windsor Great Park with her close friends Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth, the future queen of the United Kingdom - provide an extraordinary and intimate look at the British royal family.

Peter Ackroyd's insightful new biography positions Shakespeare in the close context of his world. In this way, Ackroyd not only richly conjures up the texture of Shakespeare's life, but also imparts an amazing amount of vivid, interesting material about place, period and background. Walk with Ackroyd through sixteenth century London and Stratford as he uncovers the intimate circumstances of Shakespeare's life.

Do you want to learn more about the Winston Churchill, but don’t have time to listen to huge, long biographies. Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his tenure in World War 2. Winston Churchill had undeniably given his all for King and country and an allied victory promised to be his finest hour; but he was wise to be cautious, and quite incredibly his own future as the nation’s Prime Minister was far from assured.

Prince Harry has made headlines all over the world with his unruly antics, but instead of being sidelined as the House of Windsor's biggest liability, Prince Henry of Wales has emerged as the jewel in the crown of the modern British Monarchy. Today Harry is the most popular member of the monarchy after Her Majesty herself. He has won the public's heart as the loveable rogue prince and royal heartthrob for girls and women around the world.

At 17, Karen Chen has already achieved what some girls can only dream of - and it's only the beginning for her. The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, she began figure skating at five. Ten years and many grueling training sessions later, she won a bronze medal at the 2015 US Championships after sustaining a nearly career-ending ankle fracture a year earlier. In 2017, she became the US National Champion, winning gold twice and receiving the highest score ever recorded for the short program at the US National level.

In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents were told that their children had been adopted.

William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, permanently changing the landscape of the English countryside and the course of English history. No one debates his importance; whether the influence was good or bad is a much more involved conversation. To understand English history over time, it is important to understand the transition from Anglo-Saxon history of the country to the Anglo-Norman control that existed until approximately the 15th century.

On April 26, 1871, a police constable walking one of London's remotest beats stumbled upon a brutalized young woman kneeling on a muddy road - gashes were cloven into her skull, her left cheek was slashed open and smashed in, her right eye was destroyed, and above it a chunk of the temporal bone had been bashed out. The policeman gaped in horror as the woman held out her hand before collapsing into the mud, muttering, "Let me die", and slipping into a coma. Five days later she died, her identity still unknown.