150 years ago this March, on 16 March 1872, the first ever FA Cup final was played between the Wanderers and the Royal Engineers.Register now and explore the ArchiveIn this special blog, we will take a look at this historic match, which was played at Kennington Oval in South London, using newspapers taken from the time, as well as a very special account that was written some 66 years later.The Association Challenge Cup Final TieOn 13 March 1872 the Maidenhead Advertiser published…

To celebrate International Women’s Day this year, and as part of our look at the history of football this March, in this very special blog we will be taking a look at pioneering early women footballers.Register now and explore the ArchiveFrom those who took to the pitch in the eighteenth century Bath, to those who played in the first international match in 1881, we will look at the women who disrupted the status quo in order to play a…

Bedford, November 1726 – On Wednesday the 23d Instant, a most obstinate and hard Match at Foot-ball was play’d near Great Harwood in this County, between 7 Men of the Village of Ranse, and the like Number of Great Harwood; which last had challenged the whole Kingdom to match them. The Contest was so great between them, that one of the Harwood’s Champions dropp’d down dead on the Spot, whose Brother being engaged on the same Side, would not leave off till the…

This week at The Archive is a very special one, as today on the 29 November 2021 we celebrate our tenth birthday! It is ten years since we launched the British Newspaper Archive, and to celebrate this decade of digitising newspapers, we have added ten brand new titles to our collection, as well as updating ten of our existing titles, numbering 114,064 brand new pages in all.So read on to find out more about all of our new ten titles, which hail…

This week at The Archive we have been busy adding 178,016 brand new pages for you to explore, with the addition of eight brand new titles this week, which cover a range of specialities, from sport to religion, from illustrated news to military information, whilst also covering the counties of Kent, Surrey and Middlesex.We’ve also updated a wide range of our existing titles, with eighteen titles on The Archive gaining new pages this week. So read on to discover more…

This week at The Archive we have added another 51,790 brand new pages to our collection, with one very special new title joining us this week, which helps us to unlock Black British history and beyond. Meanwhile, we have made extensive updates to six of our existing titles.So read on to discover more about our brand new title of the week, The Keys, our updated titles of the week, and to find out about a very special cricket match which…

This week at The Archive we have been busier than ever, as we have added 294,076 brand new pages to our collection. This includes eleven brand new titles, with our new publications covering the counties of Kent, Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridge, and Suffolk, as well as London.Meanwhile, we have updated 36 of our existing titles – so read on to discover about all of our updates and new additions of the week, and also to find out more about Captain Matthew Webb, who…

This week at The Archive we have a lucky thirteen brand new titles, whilst we have added 139, 284 brand new pages over the past seven days. We have a trio of brand new sporting titles joining us this week, each with a focus on boxing, golf and football, a new Welsh political title, as well as a new publication focussing on the latest news from South Africa.So read on to discover more about all these new newspaper titles, as well…

In 1900 women were allowed to compete in the modern summer Olympic Games for the very first time. The first woman to win an individual gold medal at the summer Olympic Games was British tennis player Charlotte Cooper Sterry, winner of five Wimbledon titles, on 11 July 1900 in Paris.Want to learn more? Register now and explore The ArchiveAnd so, in this special blog, we will take a look at the achievements of the likes of Charlotte Cooper Sterry, and the…

Nearly one hundred years ago athletes Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell took the Olympic Games and the world by storm, their heroics on the track immortalised in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.But how were Abrahams’s and Liddell’s record-breaking feats reported on in the newspapers of the time? Were they celebrated in, say, the same way we celebrate our sporting heroes of today? In this special blog, we will explore the headlines behind the real Chariots of Fire, and in…