Prester John, the fictional Asian Christian ruler, dwelt within the western medieval psyche for centuries and features heavily in . He is the subject of numerous letters and as an artistic subject of the period. How, when there was so little physical evidence for his existence, did his legend persist ..read more

When looking through files concerning the Special Operations Executive's activities in western Europe, digitally re-published this week as part of our , I was struck by the sheer variety of work in which it engaged. Along with the expected documents concerning sabotage missions, arms shipments to resistance movements, armistice terms, and relations with other intelligence agencies (and also missions named after a surprising array of vegetables) are files on the distribution of a wide range of propaganda materials ..read more

December 10 is Human Rights Day; it celebrates the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations. Certain to find a grand celebration of the Declaration I delved into our resources but was instead side-tracked by a page from "Union Jack" in Service Newspapers of World War Two ..read more

Having recently stumbled across a news story about two Parisian streets left frozen in time after a World War Two era film set had to be abandoned as the city went into lockdown following the coronavirus outbreak, I decided to delve into the resource to learn more about the city of light that ‘went dark’ during the years of German occupation from June 1940 to August 1944 ..read more

On 16th September 1963, Prime Minister of Malaya Tunku Abdul Rahman declared the formation of the Federation of Malaysia, joining Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. Indonesian leader Sukarno strongly opposed this union, resulting in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation, or ‘Konfrontasi ..read more

offers insights into the impact the first few months of the Second World War had on the book publishing industry, our libraries, and the books we were scrambling to read ..read more

The importance of the fourth of July to the United States and its citizens goes without saying. And during the Second World War, the Declaration of Independence and other milestones in American history were pressed into service to bolster morale and motivation among new recruits to the US Army. The papers of Julius S. Schreiber, held by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and digitised for Adam Matthew Digital’s Medical Services and Warfare, 1928-1949 offer an interesting example of how the United States’ birth was brought into military service ..read more

Telling ghost stories is now a pastime most commonly associated with Halloween but surprisingly it was once a time-honoured Christmas tradition ..read more

“Self-control is strength. Thought is mastery. Calmness is power”. You would be forgiven for thinking these words were from a modern-day mindfulness expert, or perhaps an Instagram influencer. They would certainly not look out of place on a mug or trendy wall art. But no, they are found in the notes of an American prisoner of war from the Second World War, published in America in World War Two: Oral Histories and Personal Accounts ..read more

holds a fascinating collection of letters from the Iwata family highlighting the devastating aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor for Japanese Americans in the US ..read more