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  1. Blackleaf

    13-year-old cadet, Harry Hayes, plants the last of the Tower's 888,246 poppies

    The final ceramic poppy has been planted at the Tower of London this morning, as the nation paid tribute to the millions of British servicemen who have died in conflict since the start of the First World War. The 888,246th poppy - representing the life of the 888,246th soldier who died in the...
  2. Blackleaf

    The teenage soldiers of World War One

    As many as 250,000 boys under the age of 18 served in the British Army during World War One. Fergal Keane - whose documentary on the subject, Teenage Tommies, is to be broadcast on BBC Two tonight - remembers the sacrifice they made. The teenage soldiers of World War One BBC News 11...
  3. Blackleaf

    Brian Cox: Space, Time & Videotape

    A good science-related chat with Professor Brian Cox, shown on the brilliant BBC Four last night: Professor Brian Cox, fresh from hosting his latest TV series, Human Universe, is joined by two of his heroes, the actor Brian Blessed and Professor Alice Roberts, the anatomist...
  4. Blackleaf

    Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance 2014

    Shown last night on BBC1: In the presence of Her Majesty the Queen and members of the royal family, Huw Edwards presents the Royal British Legion's annual Festival of Remembrance, which pays tribute to all victims of war and conflict, from its usual venue at London's Royal Albert Hall...
  5. Blackleaf

    Bolt falls off London's Cheesegrater

    A bolt has fallen off London's new Cheesegrater skyscraper. No-one was injured but an area around the 47-storey Leadenhall Building in the City has been cordoned off. It fell from the fifth floor to the ground at the side of the building - and another bolt also broke off but was contained...
  6. Blackleaf

    The Real Da Vinci Code with Tony Robinson

    In this one-off Channel 4 documentary, former Blackadder star Tony "Baldrick" Robinson, now an amateur historian and Labour Party activist, sets out to discover the facts about the Holy Grail and cut through the thicket of mystery that surrounds the sacred subject. The Real Da Vinci Code with...
  7. Blackleaf

    Bizarre marks in historic house were to protect James I from witches and demons

    Archaeologists have discovered bizarre marks known as witchmarks which were carved into a room in a historic house in preparation for a visit from King James I. The carvings were made in the early 17th Century to protect the monarch - who was James VI in Scotland - from spirits and demons...
  8. Blackleaf

    Guy Fawkes Night: Town of Lewes to burn effigy of Alex Salmond

    Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night and all across the land fireworks are being set off (I can hear lots outside right now) and bonfires are lit as revellers gather round in the freezing night air eating treacle toffee and black peas in vinegar to celebrate the thwarting of a Catholic plot to blow up...
  9. Blackleaf

    The soldiers of Stonehenge

    Poignant footage of First World War soldiers will be projected on to Stonehenge as part of a new English Heritage exhibition telling the story of how one million men trained on Salisbury Plain during the conflict. The footage of the soldiers marching is being beamed onto the ancient stones at...
  10. Blackleaf

    Frankenstein and the Vampyre: A Dark and Stormy Night

    In 1816, a group of young English writers - Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (who would soon become Mary Shelley upon her marriage to Percy), Lord Byron and John William Polidori - met at a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva, spending their time writing, boating on the lake and talking late into the...
  11. Blackleaf

    "Rugby is wild": How the US reacted to their side's rugby thrashing by New Zealand

    "Rugby is wild": How the US reacted to their side's rugby thrashing by New Zealand The USA rugby union team came up against the mighty New Zealand All Blacks at Soldier's Field in Chicago on Saturday - and were, not surprisingly, thrashed 74-6 by the greatest rugby union nation on Earth. But...
  12. Blackleaf

    Spider House

    I plucked up the courage to watch this brilliant 90-minute BBC documentary on BBC Four last night. Britain has around 650 species of spider and, in this Halloween special, several of these species are given a whole house to themselves! Alice Roberts (the anatomist, osteoarchaeologist...
  13. Blackleaf

    RAF scrambles two fighter jets to intercept Latvian cargo plane over London

    Two RAF Typhoons were yesterday scrambled to intercept a Latvian cargo plane that had veered off course over London, causing a terror alert. The fighter jets flew from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire to Kent within minutes to halt the plane, which was on its way to Birmingham Airport, after it...
  14. Blackleaf

    Nasty left-wing Guardian calls poppy installation "Ukip-style memorial"

    The nasty left-wing Bible, The Grauniad, has provoked outrage after calling the poppy memorial at the Tower of London a "Ukip-style memorial." The installation, called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, is seeing 888,246 ceramic poppies - one for each British military fatality in WWI - being...
  15. Blackleaf

    Zambia's president dies in London

    Zambia's president, Michael Sata, has died in Britain, leading to the southern African nation, which gained its independence from Britain in 1964, getting its first white president for 20 years. The 77-year-old, who had been in office since September 2011, died last night at London's King...
  16. Blackleaf

    British man who saved hundreds of Jewish children is honoured by Czech Republic

    A British man who saved 669 children, most of them Jews, from the Nazis is to receive the Czech Republic's highest state honour. Sir Nicholas Winton was 29 when he arranged trains to take the children out of occupied Czechoslovakia and for foster families to meet them in London. Now 105, he...
  17. Blackleaf

    David Cameron shoved in the street by member of the public

    British Prime Minister David Cameron was shoved in the street by a member of the public today in a "very significant security breach." The PM was in Britain's third-largest city, Leeds, to promote the government's proposed HS3 high speed rail link between Leeds and Manchester. But as he came...
  18. Blackleaf

    After 13 years and 453 lives, Britain's war in Afghanistan comes to an end

    After 13 years and 453 fatalities, the British military's role in the War in Afghanistan has come to an end today. In a historic moment in the Afghan desert, Britain lowered its flag in Camp Bastion in an end of operations ceremony signifying the finish of the longest military campaign in...
  19. Blackleaf

    Giant poppy made by 1,400 GCHQ intelligence agency staff

    More than 1,400 staff of British intelligence agency GCHQ have created a giant remembrance poppy at the organisation's "doughnut" headquarters in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Staff dressed up in red rain ponchos to form the 125ft poppy to mark the start of the Royal British Legion's...
  20. Blackleaf

    Veteran glam rocker Alvin Stardust dies aged 72

    Veteran glam rocker Alvin Stardust has died at the age of 72. He had recently been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and died at home with his wife, Julie, and family around him, his manager said. Stadust, whose real name was Bernard Jewry, was born in London's East End in 1942. His...