IN 1792, Britain's King George III sent a trade mission to China. The Emperor Qianlong was little more impressed than had been his Mongol predecessor in 1342 by an emissary from Pope Benedict XII. He gave George's envoy a message to take back: You, O… more »

YES, July 2nd is the day Americans should celebrate. Congress was in session in Philadelphia. Unanimously (bar the New Yorkers, awaiting a decision from home) the men from the 13 states resolved that these united colonies are and of right ought to be… more »

GREEKS still consider Tuesday an unlucky day. May 29th 1453, was a Tuesday; the day that Constantinople, the place they called—and often still call—the queen of cities, or simply “the city” was overrun by the Ottoman forces that h… more »

TODAY it is a small stone outhouse with boarded-up windows in a car park at the rear of the Edinburgh University building. Yet there the lord chancellor (prime minister) of the Scottish Parliament and his officials fled to escape an angry mob and put the… more »

Passing-out (and upwards) day at France's Ecole Polytechnique HE HAD waited years. Yet hardly was Christopher Musgrave in the lucrative post of clerk in ordinary to the Privy Council than he asked, and got, royal permission “to resign it to… more »

Yes, mankind can regress too: look how prices rose in 1950-99, as against 1850-1900. Except, oddly, in Japan, industrialisation curbed them—as it should. Earlier centuries were nearer ours: wars (notably Napoleon’s) repeatedly rammed up pri… more »