In Tudor England, the line between mathematics and the mystic arts is vanishingly thin. Straddling both worlds is John Dee, a brilliant scholar and astrologer whose intellect grants him access to ...

Almost 51 years ago — when I was still a toddler — a gaming and science-fiction enthusiast named Lee Gold put together the first edition of an unusual collaborative role-playing-games magazine, ...

Brand new submarine HMS Thetis is the pride of the British Navy. In 1939, she sets out for a test dive with 103 men on board. But a tiny flaw in her construction has gone unnoticed, and the crew ...

Mike Lynch was often lauded as Britain’s answer to Bill Gates. Born into a working-class family, Lynch’s incredible intellect and passion for computers led him to become a billionaire ...

It may seem strange to celebrate, but let’s hear it for oil-price shocks. Admittedly, there is little reason to rejoice in a ...

As the Victorian era dawns, modernisation erodes the old ways of life and poverty rises. In the unrest, an unlikely hero emerges, capturing the imagination of the countryside’s working class. He ...

In a column in January about the paradox of work, I recalled the immortal Douglas Adams joke about working conditions: the hours are good, but “most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy”. The joke ...

In the late 1930s, the Roosevelt administration embarked on a curious project. Officials hired thousands of unemployed writers to produce guidebooks, children’s books, local histories, collections of ...

In the final days of the Sixties, The Rolling Stones join forces with other rock legends to plan a free concert at Altamont that will rival Woodstock.The “bad boys of rock” don’t have the best ...

In 1942, eight men are sent from Nazi Germany to infiltrate America. Their mission: to sabotage critical infrastructure. Their problem: they’re idiots. Operation Pastorius soon devolves into one of ...

The sewing machine was once thought to be an impossible invention. It was such a complicated contraption that it would take more than one inventor, with more than one good idea, to make it work. Each ...