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An hour-by-hour account of the Great Fire of London, which started 350 years ago today... How French spies burnt London to the ground... at least that's what most Britons thought when the Great Fire started 350 years ago this week. And, as this mesmerising hour-by-hour account reveals, they...

Another piece of scaremongering from the Remainers - that Scots would overwhelmingly want to break away from the UK if the UK as a whole votes for Brexit but Scotland votes to stay in the EU - has been blown to smithereens. In a blow to the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon...

A majority of the British public are in favour of banning the burka in public, a poll has found, while almost half say the burkini should be prohibited. The findings come as a controversial ban on the burkini in France has stirred debate on the subject of Muslim clothing. According to...

A group of boys from Britain's prestigious Eton College have met Russia's President Vladimir Putin during a visit to the Kremlin. The rare meeting, held in a state room, apparently lasted at least an hour, during which Mr Putin discussed world affairs with the 11 boys. Eton boys given private...

Of all eras, the 17th century seems to have generated more mistruths than most. This was a period that saw the beginnings of the press (newspapers), the first stirrings of scientific discourse and London's great chroniclers such as Pepys, Evelyn and, latterly, Defoe. It was also a time...

A huge Russian telescope in a remote part of the Caucasus detects a mysterious burst of radio signal coming from far away in outer space. It’s traced to a 6.3 billion-year-old star in a constellation 94.4 light years away from Earth, meaning the radio waves have been travelling across...

Tomorrow is the 350th anniversary of the start of the Great Fire of London. The conflagration, which started at the bakery of Thomas Farriner - the baker of Charles II - in the early hours of Sunday 2nd September 1666, consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul's Cathedral and most of...

Europe's Competition Directorate commands the shock troops of the EU power structure. Ensconced in its fortress at Place Madou, it can dispatch swat teams on corporate dawn raids across Europe without a search warrant. It operates outside the normal judicial control that we take for...

With this Friday being the 350th anniversary of the start of the Great Fire, Nick Rennison looks at what life was like in Restoration London... Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of Restoration London What was life like for a 17th-century Londoner? Here, on the eve of...

England posted the highest ever One Day International total as they beat Pakistan by 169 runs at Trent Bridge to secure a series victory. Alex Hales struck a record 171 and Jos Buttler made England's fastest ever 50 from 22 balls as England hit 444-3. This surpassed the 443-9 posted by Sri...

Wasn’t it one of the ‘Remain’ campaign’s big arguments that leaving the EU would deprive us of the ‘clout’ we enjoy in negotiating foreign trade agreements? I seem to remember someone even warning us that in the event of Brexit we would go ‘to the back of the queue’ for a trade agreement...

Theresa May is chairing a meeting of her cabinet at Chequers to discuss the UK's approach to leaving the EU and its objectives in future negotiations. The prime minister and senior ministers are gathering to debate the way forward amid reports of tensions and diverging priorities among...

The families of the Red Baron and the first two British pilots he killed will meet to mark the centenary of the deaths and toast to the soldiers' memory. On 17 September 1916, Englishman Lionel Morris, 19, and Tom Rees, 21, of Wales, became the first victims of Manfred von Richthofen -...

This time two years ago, the United Kingdom stood on the brink of dissolution. The referendum on Scottish independence (on 18th September) hung in the balance and momentum was with the nationalists. The optimism and energy of Alex Salmond’s campaign stood in admirable contrast to the...

For an exciting moment in the 1980s, it seemed that Britain could become the world's first online society. So what happened to Prestel? Prestel: The British Internet That Never Was? By Tom Lean Posted 23rd August 2016 History Today Screen shot of Prestel in use Over the last 20 years there...

They were from the Tudor Era (1485-1603), they were spies, they were intriguing, and there are ten of them.... 10 Intriguing Spies From The Tudor Era Debra Kelly August 13, 2016 Listverse Political intrigue and espionage are nothing new. But in the days before high-tech spy gear, the...

The seemingly insoluble problems the European Union has brought upon itself crowd in from all directions: the slow-motion catastrophe of the euro; the unending flood of refugees; the deadly plague of terrorism; the approaching energy crunch. And now, amid that growing resentment right...

Here are seven things you might not know about Britain's second-longest-reigning monarch... 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Queen Victoria...

Theresa May will not hold a parliamentary vote on Brexit before opening negotiations to formally trigger Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, The Telegraph has learned. Opponents of Brexit claim that because the EU referendum result is advisory it must be approved by a vote in the...

There's growing evidence that a landmark flat-topped hill in Dumfries and Galloway was the site of the first major battle of the Roman invasion of Scotland. Archaeologists have been trying for 300 years to assess the role of Burnswark in the Roman occupation. New excavations suggest the...