Actually, it was Only the Beginning... Welcome to the Year 1000. This is What Life was Like. How clothes were fastened in a world without buttons, p.10 The rudiments of medieval brain surgery, p.124 The first millennium's Bill Gates, p.192 How dolphins forecasted weather, p.140 The recipe for a medieval form of Viagra, p.126 Body parts a married woman had to forfeit if she committed adultery, p.171 The fundamental rules of warfare, p.154 How fried and crushed black snails could improve your health, p.127 And much more...

    bataar bones he was impressed. The enormous skull and teeth betrayed the apex predators close relation to the storied Tyrannosaurus rex, the most famous animal that ever lived. Prokopi's obsession with fossils had begun decades earlier, when he was a Florida boy scouring for shark teeth and Ice Age remnants, and it had continued as he built a thriving business hunting, preparing, and selling specimens to avid collectors and private museums around the world. To scientists' fury and dismay, there was big money to be made in certain corners of the fossil trade. Prokopi didn't consider himself merely a businessman, though. He also thought of himself as a vital part of paleontology--as one of the lesser-known artistic links in bringing prehistoric creatures back to life--and saw nothing wrong with turning a profit in the process. Bone hunting was expensive, risky, controversial work, and he increasingly needed bigger "scores." By the time he acquired a largely complete skeleton of T. bataar and restored it in his workshop, he was highly leveraged and drawing quiet scorn from peers who worried that by bringing such a big, beautiful Mongolian dinosaur to market he would tarnish the entire trade. Presenting the skeleton for sale at a major auction house in New York City, he was relieved to see the bidding start at nearly $1 million---only to fall apart when the president of Mongolia unexpectedly stepped in to question the specimen's origins and demand its return. An international custody battle ensued, shining new light on the black market for dinosaur fossils, the angst of scientists who fear for their field, and the precarious political tensions in post-Communist Mongolia. The Prokopi case, unprecedented in American jurisprudence, continues to reverberate throughout the intersecting worlds of paleontology, museums, art, and geopolitics.

    I absolutely loved it' James O'BrienTwitter hero James Felton brings you the painfully funny history of Britain you were never taught at school, fully illustrated and chronicling 52 of the most ludicrous, weird and downright 'baddie' things we Brits* have done to the world since time immemorial - before conveniently forgetting all about them, of course. Including:- Starting wars with China when they didn't buy enough of our class A drugs- Inventing a law so we didn't have to return objects we'd blatantly stolen from other countries - Casually creating muzzles for women- And almost going to war over a crime committed by a pig52 TIMES BRITAIN WAS A BELLEND will complete your knowledge of this sceptred isle in ways you never expected. So if you've ever wondered how we put the 'Great' in 'Great Britain', wonder no more . . . *And when we say British, for the most part we unfortunately just mean the English.

    Travel writer Sarah Baxter expertly curates the world’s most wonder-filled sites where magic is made manifest. Discover the history and geography of each site and learn their most significant and spellbinding stories, with suggestions of features to look out for and information on ceremonies. Filled with beautifully bewitching illustrations, this guide aims to transport you, in the comfort of your own armchair, to sacred and mystical spots, digging into their legends and evoking their supernatural essence.   Seeking a transcendent travel experience? Take a magical pilgrimage to Alfaborg, the City of Elves; marvel at the otherworldly splendour of Xandadu, the heart of a lost dynasty; and discover the gateway to the afterlife in the Alepotrypa Cave. In these pages we meet mythical kings, explore sacred summits and enchanted architecture, and find a cast of giants, ghosts, golems and sea creatures. Featured locations: Tintagel, England Cadair Idris, Wales Loch Coruisk, Scotland Alfaborg, Iceland Chartres Labyrinth, France Harz Mountains, Germany Old-New Synagogue, Czech Republic Lake Bled, Slovenia Alepotrypa Cave, Greece Tartessos, Spain Cyclops Riviera, Italy Gedi Ruins, Kenya Stone Circles of Senegambia, Senegal & The Gambia Xanadu, China Takachiho, Japan Spiti Valley, India Mount Mani, South Korea The Pinnacles, Australia Nan Madol, Micronesia Majorville Medicine Wheel, Canada Bonaventure Cemetery, USA Mount Shasta, USA Malinalco, Mexico Lake Guatavita, Colombia Nazca Lines, Peru Each book in the Inspired Traveller's Guides series offers readers a fascinating, informative and charmingly illustrated guide to must-visit destinations round the globe. Also from this series, explore intriguing: Artistic Places (March 2021), Spiritual Places, Literary Places and Hidden Places.

    We have become so distanced from this way of experiencing our environment that it may initially seem hard to believe that it is possible, but Tristan Gooley uses a collection of 'keys' to show how everyone can develop this ability and enjoy the outdoors in an exciting way - one that is both new and ancient.

    The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land once served as a buffer between England and Scotland. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state. Today, its boundaries have vanished from the map and are matters of myth and generational memories. In The Debatable Land, historian Graham Robb recovers the history of this ancient borderland in an exquisite tale that spans Roman, Medieval, and present-day Britain. Rich in detail and epic in scope, The Debatable Land provides a crucial, missing piece in the puzzle of British history.

    Earlier this year, the remains of a man with a curving spine, who possible was killed in battle, were discovered underneath the paving of a parking lot in Leicester, England. Phillipa Langley, head of The Richard III Society, spurred on by the work of the historian Michael Jones, led the team of who uncovered the remains, certain that she had found the bones of the monarch. When DNA verification later confirmed that the skeleton was, indeed, that of King Richard III, the discovery ranks among the great stories of passionate intuition and perseverance against the odds. The news of the discovery of Richard's remains has been widely reported by the British as well as worldwide and was front page news for both the New York Times and The Washington Post. Many believe that now, with King Richard III's skeleton in hand, historians will finally begin to understand what happened to him following the Battle of Bosworth Field (twenty miles or so from Leicester) and, ultimately, to know whether he was the hateful, unscrupulous monarch of Shakespeare's drama or a much more benevolent king interested in the common man. Written in alternating chapters, with Richard's 15th century life told by historian Michael Jones (author of the critically acclaimed Bosworth - 1485) contrasting with the 21st century eyewitness account of the search and discovery of the body by Philippa Langley, The King's Grave will be both an extraordinary portrait of the last Plantagenet monarch and the inspiring story of the archaeological dig that finally brings the real King Richard III into the light of day.

    But on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind: Mrs Pretty, the widowed farmer, has had her hunch proved correct that the strange mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds against a background of mounting national anxiety, it becomes clear though that this is no ordinary find ... and soon the discovery leads to all kinds of jealousies and tensions.John Preston's recreation of the Sutton Hoo dig - the greatest Anglo-Saxon discovery ever in Britain - brilliantly and comically dramatizes three months of intense activity when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivaly flourished in equal measure.

    Revisiting the major turning points in Welsh history - from the fledgling Welsh state under Llywelyn the Last and the ravages of the Black Death, through to its transformation into an economic power with the Industrial Revolution and its participation in the creation of a modern British Welfare State and the economic boom of the 1940s and 50s - Jon Gower re-examines many of the myths and misconceptions about Wales and the Welsh, uncovering rich evidence of its outward-looking dynamism and its important role on the world stage.Accompanying a landmark BBC series, and with an introduction by series presenter Huw Edwards, The Story of Wales is an epic account of the history of Wales for a new generation.

    And there has never been a summer quite like that Indian summer between the two world wars, a period of gentle decline in which the sun set slowly on the British Empire and the shadows lengthened on the lawns of a thousand stately homes.Real life in the country house during the 1920s and 1930s was not always so sunny. By turns opulent and ordinary, noble and vicious, its shadows were darker. In The Long Weekend, Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the truth about a world half-forgotten, draped in myth and hidden behind stiff upper lips and film-star smiles. Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, on unpublished letters and diaries, on the eye-witness testimonies of belted earls and unhappy heiresses and bullying butlers, The Long Weekend gives a voice to the people who inhabited this world. In a definitive social history which combines anecdote and narrative with scholarship, it brings the stately homes of England to life, giving readers an insight into the guilt and the gingerbread, and showing how the image of the country house was carefully protected by its occupants above and below stairs, and how the reality was so much more interesting than the dream.

    His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But the commandant's plans for a three-year expedition to reach the magnetic South Pole would be thwarted at each turn. Before the ship cleared South America, it had already broken down, run aground, and lost several key crew members, leaving behind a group with dubious experience for such an ambitious voyage.As the ship progressed into the freezing waters, the captain had to make a choice: turn back and spare his men the potentially devastating consequences of getting stuck, or recklessly sail deeper into the ice pack to chase glory and fame. He sailed on, and the Belgica soon found itself stuck fast in the icy hold of the Antarctic continent. The ship would winter on the ice. Plagued by a mysterious, debilitating illness and besieged by the monotony of their days, the crew deteriorated as their confinement in suffocating close quarters wore on and their hope of escape dwindled daily. As winter approached the days grew shorter, until the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, condemning the ship's occupants to months of quarantine in an endless night.Forged in fire and carved by ice, Antarctica proved a formidable opponent for the motley crew. Among them was Frederick Cook, an American doctor--part scientist, part adventurer, part P.T. Barnum--whose unorthodox methods delivered many of the crew from the gruesome symptoms of scurvy and whose relentless optimism buoyed their spirits through the long, dark polar night. Then there was Roald Amundsen, a young Norwegian who went on to become a storied polar explorer in his own right, exceeding de Gerlache's wildest dreams by leading the first expeditions to traverse the Northwest Passage and reach the South Pole.Drawing on firsthand accounts of the Belgica's voyage and exclusive access to the ship's logbook, Sancton tells the tale of its long, isolated imprisonment on the ice--a story that NASA studies today in its research on isolation for missions to Mars. In vivid, hair-raising prose, Sancton recounts the myriad forces that drove these men right up to and over the brink of madness.

    Reading it is like unravelling the bandages on a mummy to find the face of the past staring back in all its terrible and poignant humanity’ Financial TimesA groundbreaking account of what it was like to live in a Victorian body from one of our best historians.Why did the great philosophical novelist George Eliot feel so self-conscious that her right hand was larger than her left?Exactly what made Darwin grow that iconic beard in 1862, a good five years after his contemporaries had all retired their razors?Who knew Queen Victoria had a personal hygiene problem as a young woman and the crisis that followed led to a hurried commitment to marry Albert?What did John Sell Cotman, a handsome drawing room operator who painted some of the most exquisite watercolours the world has ever seen, feel about marrying a woman whose big nose made smart people snigger?How did a working-class child called Fanny Adams disintegrate into pieces in 1867 before being reassembled into a popular joke, one we still reference today, but would stop, appalled, if we knew its origins?Kathryn Hughes follows a thickened index finger or deep baritone voice into the realms of social history, medical discourse, aesthetic practise and religious observance – its language is one of admiring glances, cruel sniggers, an implacably turned back. The result is an eye-opening, deeply intelligent, groundbreaking account that brings the Victorians back to life and helps us understand how they lived their lives.

    This text sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking the reader to the Middle Ages, and showing everything from the horrors of leprosy and war to the ridiculous excesses of roasted larks and haute couture.

    To the great Catholic powers of France and Spain, England was a heretic pariah state, a canker to be cut away for the health of the greater body of Christendom. Elizabeth's government, defending God's true Church of England and its leader, the queen, could stop at nothing to defend itself.Headed by the brilliant, enigmatic, and widely feared Sir Francis Walsingham, the Elizabethan state deployed every dark art: spies, double agents, cryptography, and torture. Delving deeply into sixteenth-century archives, Stephen Alford offers a groundbreaking, chillingly vivid depiction of Elizabethan espionage, literally recovering it from the shadows. In his company we follow Her Majesty's agents through the streets of London and Rome, and into the dank cells of the Tower. We see the world as they saw it-ever unsure who could be trusted or when the fatal knock on their own door might come. The Watchers is a riveting exploration of loyalty, faith, betrayal, and deception with the highest possible stakes, in a world poised between the Middle Ages and modernity.

    It has turned Prince Edward Island into a multimillion-dollar tourist destination visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year. In The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables, Catherine Reid reveals how Lucy Maud Montgomery’s deep connection to the landscape inspired her to write Anne of Green Gables. From the Lake of Shining Waters and the Haunted Wood to Lover’s Lane, readers will be immersed in the real places immortalized in the novel. Using Montgomery’s journals, archives, and scrapbooks, Reid explores the many similarities between Montgomery and her unforgettable heroine, Anne Shirley. The lush package includes Montgomery’s hand-colorized photographs, the illustrations originally used in Anne of Green Gables, and contemporary and historical photography.