The Quakers and the English chocolate industry

Both the Fry and Cadbury families were of course Quakers and, like the Rowntrees in York, one of their [...]

THE SUPERSITIOUS ROMAN: talking cows and weeping horses

Superstition was rife and omnipresent in the Roman world, presumably as much amongst women as men. Persius singles out [...]

Wayward Julia Augusti (39 BC – AD 14), daughter of the world’s most powerful man

Julia Augusti, or Julia Caesaris, was the only blood child of Octavian, later Augustus, the only child from his [...]

The Feckless Fifties

York is one of the few British cities that is blessed with authoritative, extensive and detailed research on its [...]

John Wilhelm Rowntree’s racism and the Banderlogs

Describing a mix of chocolate business and sightseeing, John Wilhelm’s Mexico diaries are fascinating, if not, at times, somewhat [...]

Witch-lite: The Bogeywoman is Coming to Get You

In ancient Greece and Rome not all aspiring witches made the grade. But all was not lost to those [...]

The opening battles of the 1st Punic war

Messana (264 BC) The First Punic War started with the battle of Messana. Messana (modern Messina) had been something [...]