49 h. ago Fall of Roman Empire may have been caused by 'mini ice age' which 'broke the camel's back'

There were lots of reasons that the Roman Empire may have collapsed, but recent research suggests there may have been a climate crisis that contributed to its demise

Politics

3 d. ago British man, 63, dies after falling at Roman aqueduct in Spain

Unnamed tourist fell from viewing platform overlooking the historic structure in Segovia, authorities say A 63-year-old British man has died after falling from a viewing platform overlooking the historic aqueduct of Segovia in central Spain, according to local authorities.In a brief statement on Saturday, officials described the man as a British passport holder who had arrived in the city on Thursday with two other people. Continue reading...

Events

5 d. ago ‘Too original for just one medium’: Agnès Varda’s Paris photographs go on show

The esteemed film director began as a photographer, capturing the postwar freedom of Paris – where a new exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet now presents her as a vital part of the city’s creative historyThe French cinéaste Agnès Varda, who died in 2019 at the age of 90, had many lives. Initially a photographer, she broke through as a film-maker with Cléo from 5 to 7 in 1962, and then reinvented herself in her late 70s with art installations that toured the world’s most prestigious contemporary exhibition spaces, from the Venice Biennale to the Los Angeles Museum. Her last film documentaries such as the autobiographical Les plages d’Agnès (2008) and Visages, Villages (2017) reaped awards worldwide.The elf-looking gamine with her eternal short bob and soft melodious voice showed through her life a formidable determination, imposing herself in a man’s world. Today, Varda is a French monument. So much so that her work is now exhibited for the first time in one of Paris’s most iconic and...

Culture

6 d. ago Scientists reveal what REALLY caused collapse of Roman Empire

A new study has found new evidence to suggest that a little-known factor played an important role in the Eastern Roman Empire's collapse 572 years ago.

Politics

7 d. ago The brilliant ice cream farm with mini Rovers for kids to drive this Easter holidays

Families are flocking to this ice cream farm this Easter - where kids can also jump on board mini Rovers

Politics

8 d. ago New evidence suggests surprise reason behind fall of Roman Empire

Discovery of ‘unusual rocks’ may confirm an ice age caused the fall of the Roman empire

Politics

2 w. ago Cynthia Ozick: ‘Alice in Wonderland seems calculatedly cruel’

The American author on the wonder of Little Women, re-evaluating Lolita and her belated discovery of ThoreauMy earliest reading memory Andrew Lang’s Fairy books – the blue, yellow and violet ones. And the unadulteratedly grim Brothers Grimm, evocative phrases like “avenue of trees”, the now and then alluring English archaisms, the always expected three sisters or sons, the youngest first despised and then victorious.The book that changed me as a teenager A late teenager, at 17, and it was two books nearly simultaneously, both histories. One was Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in dazzling prose. The other was Heinrich Graetz’s 19th-century History of the Jews, translated from the German, far out of date but distinctly not dated. (It was revelatory to learn much later that Kafka was immersed in this multivolume work.) Together they gave me a sense of the long and intertwined corridors of the past, and a conviction that a mind shorn of history is vacuous. Continue...

Politics