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When Sir Francis Beaufort set out to sea on board HMS Woolwich in 1806, sailors did not have an accurate scale to describe the strength and impact of winds while at sea. The Beaufort Scale, which he developed, is still used today and is a morning ritual on BBC Radio 4 during the Shipping...

Donald Trump and Theresa May could hardly be further apart in their character as national leaders. Whereas Trump is seen to be decisive, Theresa May dithers. Trump is flamboyant and May is dull. While the British Prime Minister tends to seek out compromise, a headstrong U.S. President wants...

I don’t think the Italians are looking forward to the day everyone is called Muhammad. Their election results would suggest otherwise. It was, of course, a dog’s breakfast, as Italian elections tend to be (the country being no worse off as a consequence of this tradition). But the...

Researchers are using powerful X-rays to look inside cannonballs found on the famous Tudor ship the Mary Rose. They are trying to find a way of preserving the shot, which will corrode if it is put on display. There are 1,200 of the cannonballs, found on Henry VIII's flagship, currently...

Theresa May is drawing up a “full spectrum” retaliation against Vladimir Putin for the nerve agent hit on spy Sergei Skripal, The Sun can reveal. The PM has told ministers to prepare a powerful response across diplomatic, economic and military fronts to punish the Salisbury outrage -...

Eight notable events that took place in March in history... 8 historical events that happened in March From the Great Escape to the opening of the Eiffel Tower, Dominic Sandbrook highlights 8 notable events that took place in March in history... March 1, 2017 BBC History Magazine 21 March...

John Major, a Tory Prime Minister so pathetically inept that he laid the foundation for 13 years of Labour government, is an unlikely saviour of the nation. Major is best remembered for the economic incompetence and political sleaze that engulfed his government, rising all the way up to his...

A hunt is on to find up to seven statue heads that once stood in front of an Oxford landmark. The carved figures known as the Emperor Heads, outside the Sheldonian Theatre, were first commissioned by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1660s. The current set is the third and it is thought as many as...

Sir Roger Bannister, the first athlete to run a sub-four minute mile, has died aged 88 in Oxford, his family have said. A statement released on behalf of Sir Roger's family said: 'Sir Roger Bannister died peacefully in Oxford on 3rd March 2018, aged 88, surrounded by his family who were...

Part of a prehistoric human skull found beneath the North Sea has been dubbed the 'oldest ever Dutchwoman'. Alongside a carved bison bone found at a nearby site, the skull fragment is around 13,000 years old, archaeologists found. The finds form the oldest known modern human from the...

This is the hilarious moment a Shetland pony was chased by police down a residential street. The footage shows the animal evading two police cars in the housing estate in Crawley, West Sussex. Its escape - from an unknown location - prompted Sussex Police to send out four cars to bring it...

A suffragette-themed board game, where players would "dodge the police", is set to go under the hammer. The 109-year-old Pank-a-Squith set, which was designed to raise money for the women's rights movement, was named after its leader Emmeline Pankhurst and the Prime Minister Herbert...

Researchers have discovered the oldest figurative tattoos in the world on two 5,000-year-old mummies from Egypt. The illustrations are of a wild bull and a Barbary sheep on the upper-arm of a male mummy, and S-shaped motifs on the upper-arm and shoulder of a female. The discovery pushes...

Bread ovens used by invading Roman soldiers are among a treasure trove of ancient artefacts uncovered during excavations in Scotland. Some of the items date back 15,000 years and include prehistoric roundhouses and a cremation complex. Discoveries at several locations along the route of a...

A farmer is helping his lambs survive the Beast from the East by popping them into his oven. Ian O'Reilly, from Rimington, Lancashire, said 10 minutes in his farmhouse Aga can be a life-saver. Lancashire farmer revives freezing lambs in Aga 2 March 2018...

Runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City, arguably the best team in Europe right now, have won English football's first silverware of the season by brushing aside London giants Arsenal in the Carabao Cup Final. Manchester City brush aside Arsenal to win Carabao Cup By Phil McNulty Chief...

It's another demonstration of the power of Big Data - of mining a huge batch of statistics to see patterns of behaviour that were simply not apparent before. Computers have crunched 22 billion identification messages transmitted by sea-going vessels to map fishing activity around the globe...

How being pro-Brexit has lost James Delingpole more friends than being pro-Trump and a climate change sceptic... James Delingpole Even being pro-Trump didn’t lose me as many friends as being pro-Brexit How warped do you have to be to ditch your mates for voting Leave? James...

Throwing kisses as the vast crowd below went wild, the first Englishwoman to fly rose slowly over the Thames in her hot air balloon on a balmy June afternoon in 1785. Early flight was all about showbusiness and no one was more at home in the limelight than Letitia Sage, a voluptuous...

Millions are tuning in on Saturday nights to watch the BBC's epic new historical drama series Troy: Fall of a City, which is based on Homer's Iliad. The fall and sack of the city of Troy at the hands of an avenging Greek army is one that has been told for some 3,000 years, but contained...