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If you missed the ‘Laptop Library’ Radio 4 programme about the British Library’s Newspaper Collection at Colindale that was broadcast this morning, you can still listen to it on the iPlayer via the link below.What can we say? We’re thrilled (and starstruck!) to have shared the same stage, albeit fleetingly, as ‘the Shipping Forecast’…– http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01kt6qw/Laptop_Library/…

Just a wee note to let folk know that Radio 4 will be broadcasting its Laptop Library programme about the British Library’s Newspaper Collection on Friday 20 July at 11am (GMT).Presented by former librarian, Laurie Taylor, the programme will discuss the newsprint treasure contained in the Collection at Colindale Library, and will also highlight the ongoing project to digitise 40 million newspaper pages for the British Newspaper Archive website.– http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kt6qw…

With the Open Championship taking place this week, we thought we’d post a story that captures the delightful daftness of the game of golf.The story we’ve chosen is the amazing and surreal climax to the 1876 Open. Since the tournament organisers forgot to book the Old Course so that they could hold the competition, it turned out to be a very memorable Open.Illustrated Sporting  & Dramatic News | 22 May 1936As a result of not booking the course, the players had to…

We saw this excellent infographic that explains the origins and meanings of Irish surnames, and thought it would be of interest to people who use the British Newspaper Archive to research family ancestors from ‘the Emerald Isle’.– http://www.goireland.com/craic/irish-family-names.htmWe have several historical Irish newspapers available in the Archive.For people looking to research ancestors in the Belfast area, there is ‘The Belfast News-Letter’ from 1828 to 1900.For the Cork area, we have the ‘Cork Examiner’ from 1841 to 1926.For Dublin, there is…

On 10 July 1925, the famous ‘Monkey Trial’ started in Dayton, Tennessee, as science teacher, John Thomas Scopes, went on trial accused of teaching the theory of evolution in high school.The trial was one of the legal sensations of the 20th Century, and attracted national and global attention. Indeed, even Hollywood was interested, with the trial acting as a muse for the film, ‘Inherit the Wind’.The verdict was returned on 21 July 1925.We won’t spoil the story by telling you what…

The Anglo-Scottish Family History Society is holding a meeting in Manchester on Saturday 21 July, from 2pm to 3.30pm.At the meeting, people will share their knowledge about which websites they find most useful for their family history research.The meeting will be held in the Research Room at Clayton House at 59 Piccadilly, Manchester.All are welcome and attendance is free.– http://mlfhs.org.uk/…

We’ve been reading some of the stories about the Olympic Games in the Archive, and have been fascinated by many of the stories.We noticed that the first political defection at an Olympics took place at the 1948 Games in London, when Marie Provaznikova of Czechoslovakia decided not to return home.As it’s a report that, as well as highlighting a very moving personal story, also captures the start of ‘the Cold War’ era, we thought we’d post the article here.…

With the Wimbledon men’s final taking place today, we thought we’d have a look in the Archive to see what stories we could find. Once again, we weren’t disappointed!We found this report of the first men’s singles final – or as the newspapers originally called it, the Gentlemen’s Singles Final. We much prefer it being described as the Gentlemen’s Singles Final’ – the Men’s Singles Final just does not have the same appeal to it.We note that the prize money…

We love the old days when acrobats and circus performers had prefixes like ‘The Great’ and ‘The Amazing’ in front of their surnames. Truly, it was a golden age (sic transit gloria mundi).One such artiste was the tightrope walker, Charles Blondin (his real name was Jean Francois Gravelet-Blondin), who was known as ‘the Great Blondin’.We were thinking about Blondin just the other day when reading newspaper stories about ‘aerialist’, Nik Wallenda, who tightrope-walked across Niagara last week.‘The…

To celebrate the solstice and Midsummer’s Day and Night, we’ve posted two stories that muse on the traditions, legends, myths and science of this magical day.The newspaper archive contains 100s of fascinating stories about the summer solstice, from the 18th Century right up to the middle of the 20th Century.So why not go all druidy and celebrate ‘the Golden Dawn’ by reading reports of this ancient tradition in newspapers from a bygone age?Western Daily Press – Thursday 24 June 1948…