The Friday Digest 06/12/13

* Anti-apartheid icon and South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela has died at the age of 95. Mandela was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was internationally revered for his reconciliatory stance despite being imprisoned for twenty-seven years.

* 'Sacred soil' from First World War battlefields arrived in London earlier this week with seventy bags of soil which will be buried at the Wellington Barracks garden, marking the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War.  

* Everyone has heard about the Christmas Day football match of 1914, but in a letter home to his sister, wartime medical officer Dr Frederick George Chandler reveals how enemy soldiers united for festive respite in 1914:  'The Christmas truce saw German soldiers sharing a barrel of beer with us British'.

* On 2 December 1953, the BBC unveiled its first 'television symbol' -  a moving logo to identify a TV channel - nowadays known as an 'ident'. The ident was designed by Abram Games, one of the greatest poster artists of the twentieth century.

* A giant prehistoric toilet has been unearthed in Argentina. The 240-million-year-old site is the 'world's oldest public toilet' and the first evidence that ancient reptiles shared collective dumping grounds.

* Experiments have shown that 'memories' pass between generations and behaviour can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on.

* Archaeologists have uncovered more than eighty skulls of young women who may have been sacrificed 4,000 years ago in China. The skulls were found in a mass grave at the Shimao Ruins, the site of a Neolithic stone city in Shenmu county, northern China's Shaanxi province.

* This week, the appeal court heard how UK governments blocked investigations into the Malaysian massacre cover-up in 1970 and 1990s over police probe into troops killing twenty-four civilians at Batang Kali in 1948. Relatives of the victims who died in the massacre were in court to hear how soldiers of the Scots Guards had admitted murdering the plantation workers.

* An argument over how many people died in the Tay Bridge disaster has been triggered as work starts on memorials to honour the victims.

*  Rapscallion, rotter and whippersnapper. Take a look at some more insults that time forgot!

* History Today shares their reader recommendations for the history books of 2013.

* What happened when P.D. James went to Scotland Yard to talk murder with the Met investigators? 

* Sir William Hamilton and the wreck of the HMS Colossus.  

* Yesterday was the last day of Hanukkah and these stunning medieval manuscripts help to celebrate the 'Festival of Lights'.

* At a Welsh church in Llancarfan, Vale of Glamorgan, conservators have uncovered some stunning fifteenth-century wall paintings which depict the seven deadly sins. 

* Lessons of the Holocaust. 

* 'If you live, please tell our story': the Holocaust survivor who fulfilled her promise to a doomed Auschwitz child she met seventy years ago. 

 * A World War Two bomber hero is celebrating seventy years of marriage to his wife – who played a vital role in the legendary Dambusters raid.

 * How photographs told the story of the Vietnam War.  

* Has the curtain fallen on traditional panto? 

* BBC News asks what would the Union Jack look like if the Scottish bit was removed while 25 BBC viewers share their best ideas...

* J.R.R. Tolkien on fairy tales 

* Why do young readers prefer print books to ebooks? 

* Who says children's books can't be great literature?

* Breaking up with books is hard to do 

* Thanksgiving for fiction's awful celebrations 

* 'The Mr Men books started when I asked dad "What does a tickle look like?"'  

* Can you identify all of these book covers?   

 Which history and publishing stories have you enjoyed reading this week?