The Friday Digest 17/10/14

This week's update features Viking hoards, concrete shipwrecks and Spanish flu.

* Spanish flu: The deadly disease that killed more people than the First World War. 

* The French soldier’s room that has lain unchanged for ninety-six years after his death in the First World War. 

* A fascinating look at the concrete shipwrecks of the First and Second World War in the Bahamas, Virginia, and Galveston.

* Lt. Col. Townsend Griffiss, the forgotten hero of the Second World War. 

* The Black Sox baseball scandal from 1919: one of the darkest chapters in baseball's history.

* The Holy Roman Empire: from Charlemagne to Napoleon.

* Have most of the temples, tombs, & civilizations been found? Or is the greatest age of discovery happening right now?

* Chart-topping rocks: UK's 'Greatest Geosites' announced.

* Staffordshire Hoard comes to life with new technology.  

* Viking treasure haul unearthed in Scotland.  

* Did the Vikings get a bum rap? A Yale historian wants us to rethink the terrible tales about the Norse.

* Witchcraft and women in medieval Christianity.

* Jane Austen: feminist in action. 

* From Victorian fiction to Benedict Cumberbatch: the history of Sherlock Holmes in pictures. 

* Why Peaky Blinders tells us all we need to know (and more) about the 1920s and how it made 1920s Brummies hard but hip ...

* Birmingham library has won a BBC online vote to find Britain's favourite new building.

* The 1940s bandleader who braved virulent sexism.

* The first spacewalk: moments from disaster.

* Ordnance Survey team up with MyHistoricMap.co.uk to revive historical map archive. 

* A quick history of luggage.

 

* Twenty-three incredible photos of actors vs. the historical figures they played. 

* Find out what was on the TV and radio the day you were born, with BBC Genome. 

* What I want from the British Museum. 

* Five digital megatrends towards the Museum of the Future.

* Man spends evening locked in Waterstones after staff shut up shop. 

* From YouTube stars to literary lions. 

* All shall have prizes, or not: The Man Booker Prize. 

* A tounge-in-cheek look at a generic college paper.

* The Economist  looks at the future of the book.

*  Amazon opens crowd-sourced programme Kindle Scout.

* Cite and sound: the pleasures and pitfalls of quoting people.

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