Essential History | The people, places and events that have shaped our history and culture
The people, places and events that have shaped our history and culture
One of Madrid’s most delightful house museums, Museo Sorolla, charts the life of Joaquin y Bastida Sorolla through his art and in his home - where he worked and lived from 1911 to 1923. Famed for being the Spanish ‘painter of light’, his impressionistic style and ability to capture the tones of the Mediterranean coastline [...]
The area of Embajadores is a barrios in transition. Down-at-heel at the bottom of Calle de Embajadores, gentrifying as you rise up to Plaza de Cascorro - graffiti giving way to street art, hipster barber shops and artisanal bakeries. The Fabrica De Tabacos closed in 2000, after more than two hundred years as Madrid’s main [...]
In 1896, Charlie Chaplin, his mother and brother presented themselves at the door of the Lambeth Workhouse in south London. Charlie’s father had left them and with no secure earnings and they were destitute. Making matters worse Charlie’s mother, Hannah, also suffered from mental problems. Over the next few years the family passed in, and [...]
The history of Hatfield House starts in 1485, when the Bishop of Ely (Cambridgeshire) constructed Hatfield Palace, today known as the Old Palace. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-41), Hatfield Palace was acquired by King Henry VIII, passed down in sequence to his children; Edward, Mary and Elisabeth and then inherited by King James [...]
Lincoln’s Inn Fields is named after the former recreation ground for lawyers learning and practising their profession at the adjacent Lincoln’s Inn - one of London's four Inns of Court still operating today. Originally, two separate fields, it was home to public executions before becoming a training ground for parliamentarian troops during the English Civil [...]