NEW Could Peter Mandelson or Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor face charges of Misconduct in Public Office? Me at New Statesman on how the offence can be very difficult to prosecute in practice www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Today is the UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science, so we’re putting the spotlight on @melodyglenn.bsky.social and Dr. Marie Nyswander! @filtermag.bsky.social

A completely preserved #Roman syrinx (#panflute) made of one single piece of boxwood, length 11cm. It features seven precisely drilled pipes. Dating around 50/60 AD, found in Eschenz, Switzerland. On display at Archäologisches Museum Frauenfeld 📷 me 🏺 #archaeology

Some Iron Age ramparty goodness from Abbotsbury Castle hillfort, high above the villages of West #Dorset Here looking NW along the coast to West Bay and Bridport and SW along Chesil Beach to Weymouth and Portland We love it here 📷 Feb 2023 Happy #HillfortsWednesday !

A little blue hippo made by an Egyptian artisan around 4,000 years ago! 🦛 ❤️ Decorated with river plants and lotus flowers, blue faience hippos are associated with the life-giving Nile and rebirth. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. 📷 by me #Archaeology

💜🎂 Happy 200th birthday @ucl.ac.uk! In 1826, UCL was founded as London’s very first university with a progressive vision: higher education for all, regardless of religion or social background. Today we mark our Bicentenary and the beginning of a year of celebration! #UCL200

A huge congratulations the finalists of the 2026 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction longlist 👏

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social sums up why Starmer is responsible for voters hating him after such a short time:

More discoveries from my parents’ house… My mum attended Boroughmuir Secondary School from 1939 to 1945 and was very proud of gaining a Certificate of Merit with distinction in French and History. So, that must be where I got it from - the History, not the French!

Travelling in time on the shores of Loch Insh today's @theguardian.com country diary by Merryn Glover. #countrydiary #naturewriting

11 Feb 1426: Henry IV's last half-yearly payment to Thomas Hoccleve #poet of his annuity of £10. Hoccleve probably died in March. (BL)

It says "Merchant's House Museum". 😮 @merchantshallyork.org have you checked your dressers?

11 Feb 1650: d. René Descartes, philosopher, mathematician in Stockholm #otd Of pneumonia, while there at the invitation of Queen Christina.

Lion Albrecht Dürer (Albertina, Vienna)

Doesn't pay UK taxes but does expect UK taxpayers to support his business plans. I guess that's how you become rich. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

11 FEBRUARY 1776, PHILADELPHIA: “There is a deep Anxiety, a kind of thoughtfull Melancholly, and in some a Lowness of Spirits approaching to Despondency, prevailing, through the southern Colonies, at present,” John Adams writes to his wife Abigail. founders.archives.gov/documents/Ad...

Anglo-Saxon Sword Found in Grave Near Canterbury. #Archaeology #England archaeology.org/news/2026/02...

@jenniebatchelor.bsky.social I was re-reading your Lady's Magazine book last night and was suddenly struck by the image of writer Mary Pilkington. www.npg.org.uk/collections/... It looks uncannily like the illustration of a character in my copy of 'Fatherless Fanny'! Or do my eyes deceive me?

#tinyJoys & #18thc & #BookHistory This cheered me up! In honour of our shared love of Maria Edgeworth's novel Belinda, an undergrad just presented me with a 2nd hand bookstore find: a 1900 edition of Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie. Look at that cover! They don't make them like that anymore.

I am delighted to be taking part in this year’s Online History Festival hosted by British History Events! It's a whole weekend of online History lectures with a live Q&A with the historians on the Sunday. All for only £22 @britishhistory.bsky.social historytheinterestingbits.com/2026/02/07/o...

This is good news but small change in the bigger picture. The CRT spent £60 million on winter maintenance alone last year, with a further £21 million on upgrading reservoirs www.gov.uk/government/n...

The latest #OnePlaceStudy to be registered with us is Ynysymaengwyn Estate, Tywyn One-Place Study. David Church is researching the families of a place with some fascinating history, which is now a caravan and camping park! #OnePlaceWednesday

Mary’s life was tragically cut short in 1869 when she fell beneath the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins, making her the first known person to be killed by a motor vehicle. Her legacy is one of curiosity, determination and a refusal to accept the limits placed on her.

For #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience, we’re highlighting #MaryKingWard (27 April 1827 – 31 August 1869), an Irish naturalist, microscopist, author, artist and astronomer from Co. Offaly. 📷 : Mary Ward with her #microscope, c.1860 (public domain)

"History is women following behind with the bucket." So Morgan McSweeney has been replaced by Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson. Antonia Romeo is about to take over from Chris Wormald. Steph Driver may return to fill Tim Allan's vacancy. Sense that now there's a mess to mop up, get the women in

#timelinecleanse www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

TIL that the motto in the arms of South Cambridgeshire are in Dutch. They're the only civic arms in British civic heraldry that are in Dutch. "Niet Zonder Arbyt" = "Nothing Without Work"

Our latest Worker of the Week is Herbert Sharp Greenough. He lived in Vancouver Road in Eastriggs and worked at a chemist at H.M. Factory Gretna.👨‍🔬 Find out more about Herbert here: www.devilsporridge.org.uk/worker-of-th... #WorkeroftheWeek

Altars, BBC, altars!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #romans

Imagine being presented with these accounts of stark unfairness and insecurity caused by the earned settlement plans and your response being ‘It is a privilege not a right to settle in the UK and it must be earned’ - the Home Secretary needs to go www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

And the evocative recreation of the main entrance of #Llanmelin hillfort by the brilliant #AlanSorrell. Dated 1940 the painting is owned and curated by @Museum_Cardiff #HillfortsWednesday #artwork #History #art (2/2)

Ladybird home and garden. The front room (1966) Artist: Martin Aitchison

One of the maddest elements of Brexit - and there are *many* - is the rewards that continue to be lavished on the blithering idiots who sold it & continue to be proved wrong about everything every day…

A dresser inside a museum in New York City has been discovered as a secret stop on the Underground Railroad — the first of its kind discovered in Manhattan in over 100 years

It is so embarrassing that it has taken nearly a decade for a British minister to say this, a statement of the absolute bloody obvious

For background en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Me...

168 years ago, on the 11th of February 1858, 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous first claimed to have witnessed an apparition of Mary near Lourdes. Neither Bernadette's sister nor her friend reported seeing the apparition. Now, around 4 million tourists visit each year. #otd #history 🗃️

If you haven’t read what Reform councillors tried to do to Storyhouse in Chester you need to read it. A councillor brought forward a motion to remove funding over a Mini Pride event. It was defeated but arts organisations should not be governed by political flag waving www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

More proposed church demolition news. 😕 The owners of the former United Free Church in Shawlands, Glasgow, are seeking permission to demolish the historic building and replace it with a five storey residential block. Read more about their plans here 👇 www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottis...

American poet Sylvia Plath died on this day 1963. Her grave is at Heptonstall, west Yorkshire.

Eminent French neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot had many connections with Queen Square (QS), home of UK neurology. Charcot’s demos at Salpêtrière Hospital also attracted many young British physicians to Paris. Discover more in our QS Library display. www.queensquare.org.uk/archives #EYAConnections

For #woodensday , this cheeky monkey smoking a pipe from the Glasgow University Chapel. Much of the woodwork in the chapel was overseen by the renowned Scottish sculptor Archibald (Archie) Dawson. He was known for his mastery of character and often whimsical figures #Scotland

I urge you to fill in this consultation if you can - with this very helpful support from Amnesty International - although AND because ! it is heart-breaking that this country has sunk so low that Amnesty suggest in a number of cases to provide no answer as the terms of the question are so evil

From 1930s Whitechapel, Stencl championed Yiddish through his writing and as editor of Losh un leben, reconnecting refugees, poets and workers across borders. #EYAConnections https://digital.soas.ac.uk/archives/papers-of-abraham-nahum-stencl#EYAConnections

"Switzerland’s military has terminated its contract with Palantir… following a security audit… concluded that U.S. intelligence agencies could potentially access sensitive Swiss defense data… significant reputational warning for the data analytics firm" www.newscase.com/palantirs-sw... #R4Today

Manchester Free Reference Library opened on this day 1878 in the old Town Hall, King Street. Demolished early 20th century, colonnade can still be seen in Heaton Park.

Today’s municipal treasure: a non-London example here…. A badge celebrating 50 years of Morecambe & Heysham Borough in 1952. The authority disappeared in 1974 with the local government reorganisation.

According to Wright’s Book of Weather Lore (1913), an old Oxfordshire tradition says the first bee seen in February should be saluted, for it brings good luck through the year. Have you spotted any bees out and about yet? Here are a few enjoying the Mahonia flowers in my garden.