The Man Who Read Hieroglyphics
In 1821, the Pioneer Exhibition opened in Piccadilly, in the heart of London. The Egyptomania caused by Napoleon's dramatic march into Egypt two decades earlier had spread from Paris to Britain. For the first time in Europe, a beautifully decorated and painted Egyptian tomb, discovered and opened three years ago…
His Heart Is the Heart of Poland
"The only misfortune is that we come from the workshop of a famous master, a kind of Stradivarius suis generis, who is no longer here to fix us. Unskilful hands do not know how to coax new sounds out of us, and we are pushing to the bottom of ourselves…
Controversial Italian National Hero and First Duce
Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938). One of the most famous Italian poets of all time, known as the one and only Il Vate (The Poet), a great national war hero, a breakneck adventurer, a genius and a harbinger of the future (Il Profeta), and above all a defender of Italian greatness. D'Annunzio…
Russian Pele in the Gulag
The life story of Russian football's greatest talent reads like a post-war history of the Soviet Union. It is a story of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, of drunkenness and state honours, of labour camps and persecution, a story of eternal glory. At the age of 18, he became top scorer in…
Illegitimate Passions
On 17 March 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. In the eyes of the public, they were the ideal spouses, parents of five children and a model presidential couple who had spent the last 12 years of their lives together in the White House. In…
It Is Very Dangerous to Write the Truth About War
In July 1936, the heat in Key West was unbearable. The yacht Pilar had docked after six weeks of fishing around the Bimini, and its captain, Ernest Hemingway, tanned and unshaven, in dirty fishing trousers and a torn shirt, was slowly marching towards the big house he shared with his…
Like a Walnut Shell in the Middle of the Pacific
In 1819, the whaling ship Essex sailed from Nantucket Island off the north-east coast of the USA to the open sea. Twenty-one people on board had only one task - to land as many whales as possible in the shortest possible time. After months of sailing, somewhere in the middle…
Zheng He’s Maritime Expeditions
In 1498, the Portuguese seafarer Vasco da Gama, on his way to India, stopped in Malindi, a port city on the east coast of Africa in present-day Kenya. When he set foot on solid ground, he first noticed that some of the locals wore elegant silk caps that would have…
Icon of Suck Music Worshippers
"I can do it. I'll show everyone," Florence Foster Jenkins excitedly assured St. Clair Bayfield, her devoted life companion for 26 years, before the biggest day of her life as a little girl. At the age of 76, she was preparing for her first solo concert at the famous Carnegie…
Henry VIII – Matrimonial Expert
The story of Henry VIII and his six wives has long since passed from history to legend. It was told to children in the cradle and, in later times, was supposed to serve as a kind of cautionary tale. Adults are said to have found in it an explanation of…
