Newspapers in Great Britain

by Monique Barb - The first publications are the invention of the 18th century, being called "daily". They appeared thank to the restless activity of Richard Steele (1672-1729), the founder of "The Tattler" magazine and Joseph Addison (1672-1719), the founder of "The Spectator". Besides those publications appeardaily newspapers. Nowadays, there are eleven British daily-newspapers. Every ...

Date added: 20 October '06

Lifestyle in Britain

by Cristina Nuta - One of the standing characteristics of English life is self-discipline. One can notice few noisy attitudes in the street. Generally, people are polite and always want to please. On the other hand, they do not like to show their emotions even in dangerous situations. Imagine the scene! Some Englishmen, walking in a forest, are caught by a violent storm which pulls the roots of ...

Date added: 18 May '07

About Cambridge

by Cristina Nuta - Cambridge is situated at a distance of fifty miles from London. It is one of the loveliest towns of England and the Cambridge area today is sometimes referred to as Silicon Fen, due to the growth of high tech businesses and technology incubators that have sprung up in the series of science parks and other developments in and around the city. The dominating factor in Cambridge ...

Date added: 18 May '07

The importance of time and place in Tess of the d'Urbervilles

by Cristina Nuta - Thomas Hardy's novel, 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles', is a network of comings and goings. But even though each step that its characters choose is along real roads, between houses, villages and towns which are identifiable in contemporary Britain, the names these bear are imaginary. In 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles', the characters and setting mirror each other: Tess moves from a wo ...

Date added: 27 February '07

Customs and Traditions in Britain

by Herminne Tonita - From Scotland to Cornwall, Britain is full of customs and traditions. A lot of them have long stories. Some of them are funny and others are strange, but they are all interesting. They are all part of the British way of life. April Fool's Day: April 1st is April Fool's Day in Britain. This is a very old tradition from the Middle Ages. At that time the servants were mast ...

Date added: 24 April '07

Food and Drink in Britain

by Herminne Tonita - The English Breakfast In a real English breakfast you have fried eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato and mushrooms. Then there is toast and marmalade. There is an interesting story about the word "marmalade". It may come from the French "Marie est malade" or "Mary is ill". That is because a seventeenth-century Queen of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots, liked it. She always asked f ...

Date added: 29 April '07

Arts in Britain

by Herminne Tonita - THE PROMS Do you like classical music? Every summer in London there are two months of special concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. These are the "Proms". Sir Henry Wood started the Proms in the 19th century. Now they are a tradition in British musical life. A lot of young people go to the Proms. They buy cheap tickets and stand up for the concerts. They are the "promena ...

Date added: 29 April '07

Everyday Life in Britain

by Herminne Tonita - Talking about the weather is one of the stereotypes which we apply to the British. In fact it is not quite a cliché as they do speak about weather all the time. They do so because in Britain weather changes a lot. Wind, rain, sun, clouds, snow- they can all happen in Britain winter or summer. Another common thing in Britain is queuing. At banks, cinemas, shops, bus stops ...

Date added: 29 April '07

Is Anyone in Britain Really Poor

by Herminne Tonita - There is no agreement on how to define poverty. The word at one extreme evokes pictures of starving African children or Dickensian novels. In our wealthy, developed country, can people be described as really poor? There is no official definition of poverty in Britain, although various sets of statistics are collected that are regarded by some as a way of measuring it. Th ...

Date added: 01 May '07

Victorians Valued

by Herminne Tonita - Two queens have stamped their names on eras in a matter that no male monarch has matched. Despite the efforts of some in the educational establishment, most children still recognize the reigns of Elizabeth I and Victoria. One hundred years ago Britain celebrated-with an unexpected enthusiasm- Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The 1890s were the point at which the Victorians ...

Date added: 01 May '07

London - The Town of the British Kings

by Herminne Tonita - London is the capital of England and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland. Great Britain is formed by three countries: England, Scotland and Wales. The administrative division which composes London and its surroundings is called "Big London" and is divided in "City of London" and 32 "Londoners Burgs". Westminster Palace is the siege of the British Par ...

Date added: 29 August '07

The Bronze Age

by Monique Barb - The peoples of the Middle East were using metals at a time when our ancestors were using flint and stone. But in time the idea of using metals spread from the Middle East to Europe and eventually to Britain. The first metal users to settle in this country were the Beaker people. They knew how to use copper and bronze and made daggers and axes from these metals. The Beaker ...

Date added: 30 September '07

Life in the Iron Age

by Monique Barb - The Iron Age came to Britain in exactly the same way as the previous revolutions in farming and in the use of bronze. Warrior farmers came over from Europe and settled in south-eastern England. This area of Britain was close to their homelands in Europe, it was well favoured for farming, there was iron stone to be found in the area known as the Weald and also forest land to pr ...

Date added: 01 October '07

The Roman Conquest of Britain

by Monique Barb - The city of ancient Rome was the most powerful city in the world over 2000 years ago. Her armies conquered much of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. When the Romans conquered Gaul (modern France), they met resistance from chieftains who had powerful allies on the other side of the English Channel. As you have seen, the Belgae of southeastern England originally came fro ...

Date added: 01 October '07

Life in a Monastery

by Monique Barb - Christianity was introduced into Britain during the last hundred years or so of Roman rule and by A.D. 314 there were at least three British bishops. When the Romans left, Christianity only survived in the west-particularly in Wales. But in A.D. 432 St. Patrick landed in Ireland and converted the Irish people. In their turn Irish missionaries, such as St. Columba and St. Aidan ...

Date added: 03 October '07

Life in Saxon Britain

by Monique Barb - The Saxon way of life was crude and simple compared with that of the Romans before them. Their settlements were villages rather than towns and for a long time the country was divided into a number of provinces or regional kingdoms. During the Roman period England had been one country with an excellent road system and a number of important towns. It took hundreds of years befor ...

Date added: 03 October '07

History of the English Castles

by Monique Barb - When the Normans erected their first simple wooden castles, they built them on the tops of small hills. These hills were sometimes constructed by digging a moat and throwing the earth to the centre to form a hill. The keep was situated on the mound or motte and surrounded by a long fence or stockade which enclosed a large area called the bailey. These simple castles are known ...

Date added: 04 October '07

The Growth of Towns during Middle Ages in England

by Monique Barb - Towns are necessary in all countries because it is essential to have places where goods can be bought and sold. The buying and selling can take place in shops or in a market place. As you saw on page 75, the villages did not usually have shops and, although they had parttime craftsmen, they did not normally have people whose main livelihood came from anything other than the op ...

Date added: 15 October '07

Travel in the Middle Ages Britain

by Monique Barb - Travel in the Middle Ages was either on land or by water. Rich people sometimes travelled in covered wagons. They must have been very uncomfortable as they did not have suspension and roads were bumpy and rutted. Others travelled on a box between two poles. Two horses, one in front and one behind carried it. They were trained to walk at the same pace. On land the travel ...

Date added: 31 July '08