The Friday Digest 23/01/15

This week's update features the 'Park of Monsters', bestiality in a time of smallpox and 'Kindle brain'.

* Ethel Lang, the last Victorian and Britain's oldest person, has died at the age of 114. 

* Much of what our society holds important was shaped in the nineteenth century – including some of our attitudes ...

 

 

* According to a new study, Victorian fathers were the original 'new men' rather than the distant and severe image that we tend to associate with them. 

 

* Was the death of Winston Churchill really the day that the British Empire died?  

* Nine things you probably didn’t know about Winston Churchill. 

* The mystery of the 132-year-old Winchester rifle found propped against a tree. 

 

* The 'shopping basket' through the ages. 

* How youngsters helped the First World War wounded at Chailey Heritage.  

* The Zeppelin: a terrifying new threat in the sky. 

* From Zeppelins to barrel bombs: have things really changed?  

* A Second World War Halifax bomber lost in a raid to sink the Tirpitz has been found largely intact at the bottom of a fjord near Trondheim in Norway. 

* The Holocaust film, overseen by Alfred Hitchcock, that was too shocking to show.

 

* Hitler's war on women: the story of Ravensbrück concentration camp. 

 

* Why Vladimir Putin should be at the Auschwitz memorial ceremony. 

 

* The historic video footage that shows how little – or much – our cities have changed through the years.  

 

* Costa del concrete: the Mediterranean coastline then and now – in pictures. 

 

* What the collapse of ancient capitals can teach us about the cities of today. 

 

* The extraordinary ruins of St Peter's seminary, near Glasgow.  

 

* The 'Park of Monsters' at Bomarzo in Italy. 

 

* The 1926 painting that foresaw how London would look today. 

 

* Here's where you should live in London based on your personality type.

 * The revival of the hand-painted sign. 

* For the first time, words have been read from a burnt, rolled-up scroll buried by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 thanks to an X-ray technique.

 

* Big, bad wolf: why have we fallen for Thomas Cromwell? 

 

* Bestiality in a time of smallpox.  

* The beard on Tutankhamun's burial mask beard has been glued back on with epoxy after it was knocked during cleaning, say staff at Cairo museum. 

 

* The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston presents unseen photographs by Gordon Parks of black Americans during segregation. 

* Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan: what happened to the two girls in the most famous photo of the Civil Rights Era? 

* 'Bloody Suffolk’ and the man at the heart of the Gunpowder Plot. 

* King Kong author Edgar Wallace's links to the Birmingham Post. 

 

 

* Jazz and murder in 1950s Leeds ... 

 

* From 'Gibson Girls' to bootylicious: how the 'ideal' female body shape has changed over the past 100 years.

* Revisiting Arthur Elgort’s most iconic fashion photos.

* Deception, heartbreak and hostility: the short life of Charles II’s sister, Minette.

 

* The National Archives share some insights into protecting their collection. 

 

* The UK ebook market in 2014. 

* Paper is back: why 'real' books are on the rebound. 

* Neuroscience has revealed that humans use different parts of the brain when reading from a piece of paper or from a screen.

 

* Twenty-four things no one tells you about publishing.

* Ten words we should all be using more often. 

 

* A fascinating interview with the 'book sculptor', an anonymous artist who makes delicate sculptures from old books. 

 

 

* Ten beautiful bookshops that will stop you in your tracks. 

 

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