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This beautiful rainbow would have been more at home appearing over the Stadium of Light, the home ground of Sunderland. Instead, it appeared last night over Keepmoat Stadium, the home of Doncaster Rovers, of the Championship, during a Carling Cup match against London team Tottenham Hotspur, of...

Revealed for the first time today is a Soviet map showing its plans to invade Manchester at the height of the Cold War. The chilling 1974 map identifies roads, such as Mancunian Way, in which Soviet tanks could have travelled along to enter the city. It shows targets which are colour coded...

When modern mudlarks Steve Brooker and Rick Jones were searching for historical artefacts on the Thames foreshore close to a wharf in Rotherhithe in southeast London, they didn't expect their find to be quite so spectacular. They stumbled across a 300 year old ball and chain (the only full...

The body of British soldier Paul McAleese, the son of the Iranian Embassy siege hero John McAleese, has returned home from Afghanistan. In a now traditional ceremony to honour Britain's war dead, crowds lined the streets of the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett to watch the cortege carrying...

It is something that the British have suspected for years - that the Germans are devoid of a sense of humour. Now we can confirm the rumour as fact, after a German academic has claimed that humour is an act of aggression. Helga Kotthoff, of the Frieburg University if Education, said: "Comedy...

Once upon a time, the beaver was a common sight in Britain, just like it is nowadays in Canada. But, due to hunting, the buck-toothed rodents became extinct in the 16th Century in Scotland and the 12th Century in England. Now, programmes are underway to re-introduce the beaver to Britain...

It was dubbed "The Roar on the Shore", a fireworks extravaganza on the English Channel just off Bournemouth. 110,000 fireworks let off in under 60 seconds to set a new world record - maybe so bright that the French would see it across the water. Around 175,000 spectators turned up to see it...

Millions of Englishmen will be waking up with sore heads tomorrow after celebrating their cricket team winning the Ashes. The Ashes urn may only be about 5 inches high, but to English sportsfans it's the one trophy they would like their country to win more than any other other than football's...

Here are some fascinating titbits of information about the world's 79th largest nation - the UK. Did you know that the British Isles consists of 6,289 islands, most of them uninhabited? And did you know that Britain, the largest of the British Isles, is the world's ninth largest island, and...

At 220 miles in length, the River Severn (Afon Hafren in Welsh) is the longest river in Britain, flowing through both Wales and England (the Thames is the longest river wholly in England), though in international terms it is a tiddler - there are probably hundreds of rivers that hardly anybody...

It would be very strange indeed if a year went by without a Prince Philipism being uttered. The Queen's husband, refreshingly, isn't known for his political correctness - and that's one of the reasons why the British people love him so much. On a state visit to China in 1986, Prince Philip...

A ghost has been spotted in the former home of Edward Jenner, the British scientist who invented the smallpox vaccine. It appears that a portly man is sitting on a chair between two beds, as seen through an open doorway. Staff at the house in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, believe it is the...

Prince Harry, 24, has passed his basic helicopter training course. Harry has been training with the Army Air Corps and sources say he is now likely to opt to fly Lynx support helicopters, rather than Apaches or Gazelles, the two other helicopters used by the Army Air Corps. Britain is...

On 1st September 1939, the very day that war broke out, Britain began Operation Pied Piper. This was the evacuation of civilians, mostly children, from urban areas to rural areas in case the Germans bombed the cities. From September 1939 until June 1940 - when the Battle of Britain started -...

Sixty-four years since it ended, World War II can still put many people's lives at risk. Over 1000 people from the villages of Ebberston and Allerston near Pickering, North Yorkshire were evacuated from their homes yesterday after a huge 500lb World War II bomb was discovered. It was...

Living in a beautiful 17th Century thatched cottage in a picturesque village is lots of people's idea of a high quality of life. But for one woman, vandals have been causing her misery. Mrs Dillistone spent £16,000 having the roof of her cottage in Uffington, Oxfordshire re-thatched last...

Could this be a bit of a blow to Darwinists? Despite being 155 million years old (or so the scientists say) this squid fossil is so perfectly preserved it looks as though it died much more recently (maybe it did). In fact, scientists have even been able to extract the ink from the animal and...

On Monday, Britain's Ministry of Defence released more than 800 reports of UFO sightings that occurred in Britain between 1993 and 1996 which the MoD logged, assessed and filed. They consist of more than 4,000 pages of police reports, witness statements, descriptions of UFOs and official...

Tiger Brewer has become the world's youngest wing-waker - aged just 8 years old. Tiger was strapped top of the wings of his grandfather's Boeing Spearman bi-plane and reached speeds of 100 mph after taking off from RFC Rendcomb Airfield near Cirencester, Gloucestershire. The previous record...

To this day, the British people view the Dambusters (617 Squadron of the RAF) as brave heroes, who took part in one of the most daring (and ingenious) operations of World War II, a lasting symbol of Britain's gallant fight against Nazi tyranny, an example of what might happen when evil regimes...