Clay Lane

Long before Jason came to claim it, the golden fleece had already saved a boy’s life.

King Athamas’s first wife was the cloud-goddess Nephele, but she grew restless and left him. His choice of Ino as her successor proved even more disastrous.

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When Polydectes, King of Seriphos, sent Perseus to get the Gorgon’s head, he hoped the boy would never come back.

Polydectes, King of Seriphos, sent Perseus to get the vile Gorgon’s head, thinking it was a hopeless errand that would lead to the boy’s death.

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Armistice Day is the anniversary of the end of the First World War on the 11th of November, 1918.

Armistice Day is an annual commemoration of the end of the First World War in 1918. Public ceremonies are kept on the nearest Sunday, which is now renamed Remembrance Sunday in recognition of other conflicts.

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It lasted barely forty minutes, but it brought slavery to an end in the little island territory.

The Anglo-Zanzibar War on the 27th of August 1896 is the shortest in British history, but to the people of Zanzibar it meant everything.

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General Gordon’s death was a sensation and a scandal in its day.

In 1884, General Charles Gordon was sent to the Sudan, then under British control, to deal with a revolt by Muhammad Ahmad, who claimed to be a figure of Islamic prophecy, the ‘Mahdi’. Gordon found himself cut off in Khartoum, and the events that followed forced Prime Minister William Gladstone to resign.

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Robert Clive helped to establish a lasting bond between India and Britain, laying the foundations of modern India.

Robert Clive was a brilliant and courageous officer in the private army of the British East India Company. More than anyone else, he ensured that India’s princes and people became partners with Britain rather than Dutch or French possessions, so shaping the character of India’s democratic, legal and economic institutions to this day.

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