2006年6月30日 · In 18th-century London, water was delivered to the city's residents through hollowed-out tree trunks running beneath the streets. Wealthier customers could buy spring water from private companies, but most residents used the sluggish, murky water of the Thames.

2009年10月11日 · Eighteenth century London evokes images of fine Georgian buildings, many of which are still standing, and fine art. But in reality, it more of was a modern day Sodom, the biblical city synonymous with sexual depravity, and from which English gets the word "sodomy" (to North Americans, the...

2016年11月14日 · The sudden destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake and tsunami in 1755 exerted an influence on 18th-century Europe as far-reaching as the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs in the 20th century. This is epitomised by Voltaire’s 1759 novel, Candide, satirising religious explanations of the disaster and the philosophy of optimism. By the 19th century, images of a shaking ...

2016年2月18日 · A pirate meets his fate at Execution Dock Credit: GETTY Until the end of the 18th century, the bodies of pirates were often left on the noose until at least three tides has washed over their heads. Others were displayed at Cuckold’s Point, on the Rotherhithe peninsula, or Blackwall Point, on the Greenwich peninsula, as a warning to others.

2016年7月19日 · The 16th century witnessed a surge in population, which had a negative impact on living standards and led to an increase in poverty and hunger. Indeed, poverty was such a problem during the early modern period (which was, roughly, from the mid-15th century to the mid-18th century) that Poor Laws were instituted.

2014年12月23日 · The original sense of “poky,” in the 18th century, was, logically, “something that pokes,” i.e., projects or points out (as in a “poke bonnet,” a style of the day that featured a prominent brim).* In the 19th century, the word came to mean “cramped or confined,” as a small room might make a resident feel “poked at” by the ...

2015年7月8日 · If you were looking for a rich stew of criminality, 14th-century London was the place to find it. Bruce Holsinger walks the mean streets of the medieval capital. Sin City: thievery, prostitution and murder in medieval London This article was first published in...

2016年3月15日 · From the mid-16th century, a new group of professionals, termed engineers, increasingly came to dominate the design and construction of fortifications. They had a technical understanding of the use and power of cannon, both in protecting and reducing castle defences. Top tip: Plan arrow slits carefully for a wide field of fire.

2007年8月5日 · Formally organised mutual aid - especially the friendly societies (the most popular form of social insurance for the working man and woman) formed from the late 18th century - levied a weekly subscription on members and provided financial assistance in times of need, such as sickness and death.

2010年1月13日 · Probably the most famous castaway of all time was Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721), the Scotsman who was marooned on an uninhabited desert island for four years in the early 18th Century. In 1704, Selkirk was navigating an English galley (Scotland would not join the Union until 1707), the Cinque...