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Letters written by King Henry VIII in 1527 to Anne Boleyn, who would become his second wife, have been made available to the public on the internet. Whilst Henry wrote the letters to Anne, he was still married to the first of his six wives Catherine of Aragon. He would eventually divorce...

The new British TV series "The Devil's Wh ore" hits the country's screens later this week, on Channel 4. The lavish costume drama, partly based on true events, brings the English Civil War (1642-1651) to life through Angelica Fanshawe, a 17-year-old aristocrat who becomes fascinated with...

The second British Army Gurkha in less than a month has been killed in Afghanistan. He is the second Gurkha to be killed in Afghanistan. It is the first time a British soldier has been killed inside a British Army Warrior vehicle in Afghanistan, meaning that the Taliban are using bigger and...

The Queen will step aside in five years' time to allow Charles to reign, according to senior Buckingham Palace officials. By that time Charles, the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history, will be 65. A recent IPSOS-MORI poll has found that a majority of the British public believe that...

Comedy legend, former host of the TV gameshow Bullseye and a Great British institution, Jim Bowen has brought the world's oldest joke book to the London stage. Some of the jokes he told during his stand-up routine come from a 1,600 year old Greek joke book called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict...

For years, the British have been giving stick to the EU over its crazy decision to ban bent bananas - a fruit which, of course, is naturally curved. Foreigners and pro-EU people have dismissed all this as "lies" and "myth", just an excuse for the British to attack the EU, an invention of the...

Naturalist Charles Darwin, one of the people who put the Great into Great Britain, famously sailed around the world on the Royal Navy ship HMS Beagle in the 1830s. He came up with his Theory of Evolution after visiting the Galapagos Islands, now a part of Ecuador, in 1835. It was the behaviour...

On 14th November 1948, the future King Charles III was born, the first son of Princess Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip. Tomorrow, the Prince of Wales turns 60. There has been some speculation the the Queen may pass the crown onto Prince William upon her death, bypassing Charles...

In a scene which harks back to the 18th Century, a group of pirates decided to take on the Royal Navy - and didn't live to tell the tale. The terrified pirates stood with their hands on their heads after the Royal Navy Type 23 frigate, HMS Cumberland, came to the aid of a Danish cargo ship...

Two Royal Marines have been killed in Afghanistan, bringing the British death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq up to the 300 mark. 176 British troops have been killed so far in Iraq and 124 so far in Afghanistan. Last week, a Gurkha was killed in Afghanistan. Yubraj Rai, a 28-year-old from...

Many people are under the false impression than Britain abolished the death penalty in the 1960s, around the same time as many other countries abolished theirs. In actual fact, it wasn't until 1998 that Britain actually abolished the death penalty. Even in the 1990s, there were six offences...

The tiny kingdom of Bhutan, the last-remaining independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas, has crowned its new monarch. Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, who was educated at Britain's Oxford University, was finally crowned king after a two-and-a-half year wait for the moment when Bhutanese...

If you want to leave this life in style, rather than in a traditional plain coffin, then Colourful Coffins is the company you might want to contact. This company, based in Oxfordshire, has coffins in all colours and styles.... Going out in style: The coffins that carry you off in a riot of...

The customers of the Lord Clyde, a pub near to where I live, have all placed bets on when they think Barack Obama will be assassinated. Remember, whereas the British Empire abolished slavery in 1807 (meaning Britain was the first country in the world to abolish slavery, one of the many good...

Despite her age, the Queen again once again was at The Cenotaph in central London to lay a wreath in honour of the British and Commonwealth soldiers who have died in every conflict since WWI. She's 82 years old but still serves her country well. Other members of the Royal Family - such as...

At the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in La Targette, northern France, a team is lovingly restoring the gravestones of those soldiers from Britain and her Empire who fell during the Great War. There are so many gravestones that need repairing that the whole process will take 28...

With tonight being Guy Fawkes Night, with fireworks exploding, Guy Fawkes effigies being burned on top of bonfires and people eating treacle toffee all over the country to celebrate the foiling of a Catholic plot to assassinate the King in 1605, the BBC (always one to stick up for the rights of...

There was also democracy in action in Britain on Monday as beekepers took to the streets. Hundreds of beekeepers from around Britain have marched on Parliament and 10 Downing Street to present a petition to the Prime Minister to fund £8 million of bee diseases and health. They are concerned...

The Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 was one of the most glorious failures in British military history. The incident took part during the Battle of Balaclava against the Russians during the Crimean War. The incident happened after the British advanced down a different valley from the one...

The Queen has asked economists: "Why didn't anyone see the credit crunch coming?" Today she revealed her concern during an academic briefing on the financial crisis at the London School of Economics where she opened its £71million New Academic Building. She is the first monarch to visit the...