British History

Dawn. 19th July 1972. A force of nearly 300 heavily armed, well-trained guerrillas launches a surprise attack on the small fishing village of Mirbat. All that stands in their way is a troop of just nine SAS, aided only by an elite band of fighter pilots overhead. Two years earlier, a Communist rebellion had threatened the Arabian Peninsula, in the strategically critical Sultanate of Oman. Following a covert intelligence mission, 22 SAS deployed their largest ever assault force against the rebels. But this was to be a bitter and hard-fought campaign culminating the Battle of Mirbat.

On February 15, 1942, the British surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army and handed over Singapore and surrounding Malaya countries. The conflict began on December 8, 1941, when Japanese forces bombed Singapore and continued to make their way through the treacherous Malayan jungle. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated during the attack, “the worst disaster and the largest capitulation in British history”.

Economists have called the South Sea bubble "one of the most famous and dramatic episodes in the history of speculation". The company's spectacular fall impacted not only its investors, but public confidence in corporations, investments, and even banking worldwide. How did the directors of one of the most successful joint-stock companies at the time, sought after in social circles as financiers and masterminds, come to be called before Parliament to testify?

Before the East India Company and before the British Empire, England was a pariah state. Seeking better fortunes, 16th and 17th century merchants, pilgrims and outcasts ventured to the kingdom of the mighty Mughals, attempting to sell coarse woollen broadcloth along the silk roads; playing courtiers in the Mughal palaces in pursuit of love; or simply touring the sub-continent in search of an elephant to ride.

Wondering how British place-names came into existence? Discover the meanings behind the names of England's towns and villages from the author of the bestselling ‘What’s in your Surname?’ After spending decades researching and writing about the history of names, William Lewis turns his attention to English place-names, offering a comprehensive guide to the fascinating origins of such names as Birdoswald, Jodrell Bank, California (Norfolk), Westward Ho! and Giggleswick - and many, many more. In this engaging and entertaining volume, you will discover: • the origins of place-names from...

Although the "women and children first" rule might seem like a common practice that has been observed for centuries, it was actually popularized by the 1852 shipwreck of the Royal Navy troopship HMS Birkenhead.

Our Flag Was Still There details the improbable two-hundred-year journey of the original Star-Spangled Banner—from Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key first saw it, to the Smithsonian—and the enduring family who defended, kept, hid, and ultimately donated the most famous flag in American history. Tom McMillan tells a story as no one has before. Digging deep into the archives of Fort McHenry and the Smithsonian, McMillan follows the flag on an often-perilous journey through three centuries.

Despite the assurances that the French would never hand their ships over to Germany, Churchill would put in motion a campaign attempting to destroy their fleet. As a result, Operation Catapult would be one of the most controversial and unique episodes of World War II.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before" was a phrase made popular by Gene Rodenberry in a science fiction setting, but it was certainly the creed of countless explorers during the Age of Discovery and afterwards. In fact, as recently as the mid-18th century, a young sailor named James Cook determined to go "farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go." And unlike so many others who tried, he did just that.

Discover the remarkable life of Virginia Woolf.... Virginia Woolf ranks among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Embracing the Post-Impressionist times in which she lived, her novels reflect the artistic shift from romanticism to abstract. Plot mattered very little to Woolf. Her writing was a stream of consciousness outside of time and place. Her novels, including her best-known work, Mrs. Dalloway, invariably dwell on gender roles and the concept of reality.

Have you ever thought about your own surname? Wondered about the stories behind them, especially if they are unusual?This Amazon NUMBER 1 BESTSELLING BOOK (Genealogy) tells the engaging story of when our surnames first came into use, why they were necessary and how people acquired them. After spending decades writing and researching the history of names, William Lewis presents in ‘What’s in your Surname?’ a journey through the quite diverse origins of English surnames citing hundreds of examples along the way. On this engaging journey you will discover the origin of last names, from ...

Published for the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, this poignant book examines the inspirations and individuals behind our statue-studded country to rediscover war-torn Britain in 100 monuments. Acclaimed historian Tessa Dunlop travels the length and breadth of the British Isles on a quest to uncover a story of national warring and national mourning, of fighting each other and of fighting together. Lest We Forget casts new light on the map of Britain through hidden treasures and uncomfortable truths, and asks what our war heroes and monuments say about us.

Triffin’s Dilemma: Why Economic Power Always Ends in Collapse is a gripping deep dive into the structural flaw at the core of every global currency system. From ancient empires to the modern dollar-based order, this meticulously researched narrative exposes a repeating pattern: monetary dominance leads to overreach, overreach leads to fragility, and collapse follows. It’s not ideology—it’s math. Named after economist Robert Triffin, the dilemma explains why any nation issuing the world’s reserve currency must eventually undermine its own economic foundation. The book tracks this ...

18th and 19th CENTURY ENGLISH WOMEN AT SEA is a lively and entertaining account of the three types of women one would normally find, legally, or illegally, on board a ship during the 18th and early 19th Centuries—prostitutes, officer’s and midshipmen’s wives and other female passengers during wartime, and women masquerading as sailors or crewmen. Colorful but factual accounts of surprising and certainly, little-known, incidents are drawn from letters written by sailors and other men at sea, from diaries of such figures as Admiral Horatio Nelson, and autobiographies written in the late...

World domination is a vision most kings, queens, and emperors can only dream of. The only one to ever come close to this impossible level of prestige is none other than the legendary British Empire. Today, the British Army is one of the most powerful fighting forces in the world. Naturally, the history and traditions behind this army are also impressive. Its soldiers once created and defended a global empire, and during the Second World War, it was one of the leading nations standing against the brutal Axis forces, leading the way in the greatest seaborne invasion in military history.

At eighteen, your life is full of of what-ifs and why-nots. You have everything to look forward to – unless you’ve got the plague. From a young Elizabeth Tudor, the orphan facing deadly intrigue at court, to a teenage Richard Burton, the rugby-obsessed son of a Welsh miner, historian Alice Loxton explores Britain’s past through the lives of eighteen figures at this crucial age.

Meet the Luddites, a 19th-century brotherhood of rebels who vowed to annihilate every last one of the newfangled spinning machines that cost thousands their jobs. The Luddites' riots are indefensible, at least from the standpoint of violence, but they beg the question of whether the protests were nonsensical acts of rage carried out by thugs who sought to exploit imagined fears or desperate measures taken by those who felt neglected by the government. The Luddites chronicles the revolution and the negative reaction to it.

The Third British Empire. Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern (1879–1957) was an English classical scholar, historian, and political scientist writing on international relations. His book, The Third British Empire, was among the first to apply the expression "British Commonwealth" to the British Empire. He is also credited with the phrase "welfare state", which was made popular a few years later by William Temple.

At the heart of this book is a highway. The A1; The Great North Road. A 400-mile multiplicity of ancient trackway, Roman road, pilgrim path, coach route and motorway that has run like a backbone through Britain for the last 2,000 years. In this genre-defying and profoundly personal book, Cowen follows this ghost road from beginning to end on a journey through history, place, people and time. Weaving his own histories and memories with the layered landscapes he moves through, this is the story of an age, of coming to terms with time past and time passing.

Professor Adam Potkay brings his renowned expertise on the Romantic era to bear on the period's principal poets. Providing detailed analysis of the lives and works of literary luminaries such as Robert Burns, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats, Professor Potkay examines the nature of Romantic poetry and provides insight on the stylistic flourishes and themes of this remarkable period.