The Friday Digest 15/05/15

This week's update features witch bottles, men and women in Ancient Greek art and the birth of the crash helmet.

 

* Friday 8 May marked the seventieth anniversary of VE Day and the end of war in Europe, but how did ordinary Britons celebrate? 

* Sketches of VE Day from seventy years ago.

* VE Day: the last British Dambuster. 

 

* The colour video that reveals life in Berlin after the fall of Hitler's Germany.

* The English cricket team that toured Nazi Germany.

 

* A former Auschwitz guard charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder was reduced to tears by the testimony of survivors at the resumption of his trial in Germany.

 

 
 
* Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: nursing's bitter rivalry. 

* How Florence Nightingale saved lives with statistics ...
 

 

 

* A muddy vision of the First World War. 

 

* A suspected 'witch bottle' has been unearthed by archaeologists during a dig in Nottinghamshire. Researchers believe that the green bottle, which is about 15cm tall, was probably used in the 1700s to ward off evil spells cast by witches.

* Google has a new exhibit, produced in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation as well as the Robben Island Museum, which consists of seven interactive exhibits focusing on the trial that led to Mandela's imprisonment, Mandela's life at Robben Island, quotes from various political prisoners held there, a prison tour, and more which you can see here. 

 

* Bristol's little-known role in the US civil rights movement. 

* Ten icons who redefined beauty over the past 100 years. 

 

* Picasso's Women of Algiers has become the most expensive painting to sell at auction, going for $160m (£102.6m) at Christie's in New York. 

 

* When cartography meets pop art, wonderful maps occur.

 

* The use of the sabre in the army of Napoleon. 

* The hand-stitched Magna Carta Wikipedia page which explores the fabric of democracy. 

* Eight things you (probably) didn’t know about medieval elections. 

* Politics as a religious experience. 

* Alfred the Great: do we overplay the king's 'greatness'?  

* Painless Parker: part dentist, part showman, all American ... 

* Fantastic news from the Imperial War Museum after they announced that they wont be introducing charges for researchers.

 

 

* 'Can drinking tea turn you into a whore?'  

* Let’s talk about sex: men and women in Greek art. 

 

 

* The Parthenon marbles are miracles of sculpture symbolic of Greek nationhood, do you agree?  

 

* What were the Venus de Milo’s arms doing? 3D printing the ancient sculpture. 

* Lawrence of Arabia and the birth of the crash helmet. 

 

* Life after shooting a US President. 

 

* Which film locations do you know? 

* The evolution of TV advertising.

* Mad Men-era ads. 

* Inside the demanding life of an American mother in 1941. 

 

 
 
* Seven literary mothers that everybody can learn from ... 

* A look at Maria Bronte, mother of the most famous sisters in literature. 

* Secret hideouts: the best dens in children’s books. 

 

* Which female Shakespeare character are you? 

 

* Beautifully illustrated author quotes.  

 

* What we learned from ebooks in 2014.