Since time began, disease has worried and killed huge numbers of people. The Black Death killed nearly half the population of Europe six hundred ye...
See more
Wigs have a long history. The Romans and ancient Egyptians wore them. Three hundred years ago wigs were really heavy and worn mainly by men. Now th...
See more
This short story by Tolstoy concerns good relations with neighbours is the key to a happy and peaceful home life. When that is lost, not only frien...
See more
Stephen Crane is famous for stories about the American Civil War. This is a vivid tale of accidental bravery that sees a young man go to get water ...
See more
In this French story, one of many about the war with Germany in 1870, a wealthy young Frenchman joins the Army to defend his country. Conditions ar...
See more
This story is about an old prize fighter who needs to win against a much younger but less experienced opponent to pay off his debts and feed his fa...
See more
Maupassant, the greatest of all French short story-tellers, here describes a simple habit that has terrible results. A well-known man in a small Fr...
See more
A top lawyer leaves his job, wife and home after he suddenly loses his memory. He has had a normal life but only really living for his work. Sudden...
See more
In this story, the great American writer, O. Henry, explains why a top lawyer leaves his job, wife and home after he suddenly loses his memory. Unt...
See more
Mrs. Baroda was not happy when her husband invited an old friend to spend some time at their country home. She had been looking forward to being al...
See more
The machine gun was first used in the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 and its effects were terrible. Sales of the weapon immediately increased, ...
See more
In this clever little tale, tells describes a misunderstanding at a wedding party, where a guest believes the bride's father has kissed his servant...
See more
Dog fighting has been against the law for many, many years in most parts of the world. We prefer to keep our dogs with us by the fire or running in...
See more
Mark Twain is famous for his acidic remarks about nearly every aspect of life and for a writing style that could make his readers laugh about the m...
See more
Every schoolchild in America learns about Abraham Lincoln. He was the President that lived in a small wooden home when he was a young man, but spen...
See more
There is a statue of Nelson in the heart of London. It stands high above the buildings that surround it. It was built to show a nation’s love of on...
See more
Aileen Wournos was beaten and sexually abused as a child. She left home as early as she could and became a prostitute but later developed a warm re...
See more
Al-Biruni was a Muslim scholar who was born at the end of the 10th century and wrote over 140 books. He was interested in astrology, pharmacy, math...
See more
In 1978 the Red Brigade kidnapped Aldo Moro, the Italian Prime Minister just as he was about to form a coalition Government including the communist...
See more
In this very short story, the French master of the genre tells a charming tale of an old servant, his master (who is an ex-military man) and mistre...
See more
Before Columbus discovered what he thought was India at the end of the fifteenth century, the Americas were unknown to Europeans. Yet, within a few...
See more
Maupassant did not often write funny stories. France’s greatest short story writer was more interested in love and tragedy than he was in comedy. B...
See more
Andrei Chikatilo murdered more than fifty young girls and boys all over the Soviet Union. The police arrested him once but had to let him go. How d...
See more
W. S. Gilbert’s story of a poor and sick man, living alone in Venice and looked after by a housekeeper, is a beautiful love story. Forced to spend ...
See more
A brief history of antibiotics from the days when people ate spiders’ webs for their antibiotic qualities to the discovery of penicillin by Alexand...
See more
In this very short story, van Dyke analyses the terrible misery of war. He describes a road from the Belgian city of Antwerp, crowded with people t...
See more
Archimedes is still one of the most famous and important scientists in the world but he died two thousand years ago. We do not know everything abou...
See more
A history of architecture since human beings started to depend on it after the development of agriculture started a shift to permanent homes. It is...
See more
Conan Doyle was an extraordinary man: he looked after his sick wife for many, many years and never touched his lady friend until his wife was dead....
See more
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was one of the greatest soldiers of the First World War, maybe the greatest. He defended his country against Churchill’s armi...
See more
We will never forget the name of Auschwitz, the camp where Hitler and his Nazi government killed hundreds of thousands of Jews and many other peopl...
See more
In this story, Fitzgerald follows a recovering alcoholic in his attempts to get his daughter back from his unsympathetic sister-in-law. The writer ...
See more
We think we are the strongest animals on Earth. But is that really true? This is the surprising story of bacteria and viruses and the places they c...
See more
There are myths in the Philippines and Vietnam about humanity coming from a part of the bamboo plant. In China, the bamboo’s strength and beauty ar...
See more
This story by the American master of the very short tale, Ambrose Bierce, frightens us by what we suspect, rather than what the author actually tel...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Science
·
Upper-Intermediate
Until recently, blood was simply blood. But we have discovered different blood types and that can literally save our lives when we need transfusion...
See more
Two thousand years ago, the Romans were living in Britain. Many people fought them but others thought it was safer to make friends. Boudica’s husba...
See more
Bruno Sammartino was born just before the Second World War in a mountain village in Italy. As a child he was weak because his mother could not get ...
See more
We remember Caligula as the craziest Roman emperor. He was only the head of the Roman Empire for four years but he did some terrible things. What d...
See more
When Catherine the Great was born in 1729, Russia was not one of the most important countries in Europe. But, when she died in 1796 after thirty-fi...
See more
Dickens is the most famous novelist ever to write in English. He was admired by contemporaries as diverse as Edgar Allan Poe and Leo Tolstoy. His n...
See more
A Ponzi scheme is one that gives an incredibly high interest rate because it uses money from new investors to pay dividends to existing investors. ...
See more
In Persia, more than a thousand years ago, people developed the game of chess and encouraged the young to play it because they believed it helped t...
See more
If you love chocolate – if you are a chocoholic – you will be fascinated by this article. It looks at the history of this drink and sweet, its almo...
See more
A young girl wants her father to tell her a story so he tells her one about the little girl who asked Father Christmas to make it Christmas every d...
See more
Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 and, because of him, South America was Spanish for hundreds of years and most people still speak Sp...
See more
The name of Cleopatra will live for ever. Two thousand years after she died, she is still a symbol of beauty and intelligence. But she was also dan...
See more
There’s a lot of talk these days about the state of the planet. Children at primary school learn about the dangers facing our forests and rivers, t...
See more
Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world. It was first grown in Ethiopia, which is still the home of some of the best coffee in the wo...
See more
H. P. Lovecraft is best known for horror stories but here he mixes horror and science fiction in a tale of a strange, old Doctor who never leaves h...
See more
This interesting but short article looks at the history of make-up from the Ancient Egyptians to modern times. It takes us from the Arab world to I...
See more
‘Counterparts’ is about an alcoholic who cares more for a drink than he does for his job or family. We can almost taste the whiskey and smell the p...
See more
Country and western music is a major industry, especially in the United States, where it is popular all across the South. But its appeal is wider t...
See more
Cricket is the most English of games, but it is far more popular in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh than it is in its home country. The S...
See more
Crime is just as real in wartime as it is in peace. This article looks at how crime changed during the Second World War in Britain and how some cri...
See more
In this story, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the famous author of 'The Great Gatsby', tells us about a soldier who returns to the U.S. after the First World...
See more
There is nothing more exciting than watching a football match with thousands of excited fans all around you. But sometimes, a great day at a footba...
See more
This sad but gripping story is about an old woman who, all her life, has been the victim of poverty and unkindness. She is invisible, living outsid...
See more
In this story of romance and prejudice in the slave-owning South of 19th century America, an orphan called Désirée falls in love with a wealthy man...
See more
Everybody knows that diamonds are beautiful, romantic and expensive. But where do they come from? What is the biggest diamond in the world? What is...
See more
In 1966, the World Cup was in London but a few weeks before the matches started, someone stole the World Cup. Later, a dog called Pickles found it ...
See more
An interesting story for every language student and teacher. A Frenchman who meets and falls in love with an English girl and decides to marry her....
See more
Two friends move into a house that they don’t have to pay for so they can save money. Before long though, the dark history of the house and their n...
See more
Dr. Crippen’s name was well-known in Britain long after he was hanged for murdering his wife. But did he really do it? He behaved like a guilty man...
See more
Although everyone knows about Dracula, Bram Stoker, the writer who created him, didn't become famous until they started making vampire films. In th...
See more
Drifting is an international motor sport that started in Japan. It is popular in Saudi Arabia although it is illegal and very dangerous. (330 words)
See more
Attitudes to the use of different drugs have changed a lot over the years. Right through the 19th century, the upper classes in Britain used opium....
See more
Poe lived a disappointing life. He never made any money from his stories or poems and, when he got the chance to make good, he was always too drunk...
See more
One hundred years ago in Britain, women could not choose the government. They could not be politicians. Almost no woman had a job. This is the stor...
See more
Taken from James Joyce’s collection of short stories, ‘Dubliners’, ‘Eveline’ is about a girl who is torn between the duty she feels to her difficul...
See more
Faraday changed the world. He understood more about electricity than anybody who ever lived. Albert Einstein had a picture of Michael Faraday on hi...
See more
Clarence Day’s memoir of his self-important father, written just before the author’s death, was extremely popular. In this extract, he tells the re...
See more
An introduction to the astonishing array of scientific techniques available to the police today to help them investigate crime. Find out how much h...
See more
Ever since the release of 'Catch Me If You Can', starring Leonardo di Caprio and Tom Hanks, the early life of Frank Abagnale has been well-known an...
See more
There are many books about the First World War and the millions of people who died between 1914 and 1918. This short article tells the story of how...
See more
Mohindas Gandhi fought all his life for Indians’ rights. But he was a man that fought with ideas. He never used a gun or a knife and he nearly died...
See more
Bill Slim fought bravely in the First World War and became an officer. When the Japanese entered the Second World War, he led the fight against the...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
History
·
Upper-Intermediate
Genghis Khan’s name is associated in the West with fear and it's true that he would kill all the men in any city that refused to surrender to him a...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
History
·
Upper-Intermediate
George Washington fought for the British Army against the French but fifteen years later, he became the general who forced the British out of Ameri...
See more
Geronimo was an Apache fighter, one of the last American Indians to fight against the coming of Europeans to the United States. He lived to be an o...
See more
The great American teller of stories about quiet lives in quiet towns gives us a tale about an old woman who is forced to move out of the home she ...
See more
In the past, most people living quiet lives in the countryside never left the small towns they worked in. They lived, worked and expected to die ne...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Geography
·
Pre-Intermediate
Granada is one of the most beautiful parts of Spain and many tourists visit it every year. It is in the mountains but it is only two hours’ drive f...
See more
The history of hair styles is interesting because it shows us that human beings always want something different. And it is not only women that spen...
See more
In this story, the great Russian socialist writer, Maxim Gorky tells us the surprising tale of a student living in the same house as a sex worker. ...
See more
This short story is about the close bond between a mother and her baby daughter. They often play hide and seek together but an old servant tells th...
See more
In 1945, the Second World War was coming to an end. The Germans stopped fighting in Europe and Hitler was dead. But, in the East, the Japanese pref...
See more
Starting with Galen treating gladiators in ancient Rome, on to Andreas Vesalius and William Harvey pointing out his mistakes and then to the grave ...
See more
Ibn Battuta left his home in (what is now) Morocco many hundreds of years ago. He wanted to go to Mecca to do Haj as a good Muslim. He did not retu...
See more
Perhaps it has always been true that politics is a dangerous business. President Lincoln was assassinated, for instance, and Pope John Paul II was ...
See more
Jack the Ripper killed many sex workers on the streets of nineteenth century London, girls who would not be noticed if they went missing. The polic...
See more
Britain in the early eighteenth century was a land of farms and fields but the Industrial Revolution changed the country for ever. James Watt, a Sc...
See more
Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped when she was a girl of eleven years of age and became the mother of her captor’s children. She lived in a tent in h...
See more
This story is based on a real case, it's about a young man who falls madly in love with the innocent daughter of a wealthy man who never likes to s...
See more
Johnannes Gutenberg changed the world. Before him, people copied books by hand. They wrote every word and started the page again if they made a mis...
See more
Haigh did not kill people in acid baths. He put their dead bodies in them and they became like soup. He killed for money and did not think anyone w...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Biography
·
Upper-Intermediate
John Haycraft was a pioneer in the field of teaching English to non-native students of the language. He believed that communication between nations...
See more
In this very short story, Bierce describes the funeral of a respected and important public figure. But as his friends stand around the coffin, it s...
See more
Julius Caesar is one of the most famous generals in history. He made the Roman Empire much richer and bigger by conquering France (then called Gaul...
See more
Even by modern standards, Mansfield led a shocking life: she had relations with two brothers and became engaged to the younger one when the older h...
See more
There are few places in the world as secretive and as little understood as North Korea. Although the South is booming, even in times of recession, ...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Espionage
·
Upper-Intermediate
Whilst running the anti-Soviet section in British intelligence, Kim Philby was also a general in the KGB. He was a double agent and he became the m...
See more
T. E. Lawrence went to the best schools and was a promising academic at a great English university. He earned his place in history as a British sol...
See more
Katherine Mansfield often wrote about the ugliness of middle-class beliefs and lifestyles, but did not usually make the poor the most important cha...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Geography
·
Upper-Intermediate
A brief history of London's past and its present. Its transport system and its geography, its food and weather, but most of all its people. (1,145 ...
See more
Lord Lucan went to the best schools and universities in England, got a well-paid job as a banker, was married and had much-loved children. But he b...
See more
This popular ghost story tells the tale of a very old lady and the young girl who is paid to sit and watch her, get her food and drink and make sur...
See more
Stevenson is best-known for his children’s novel, ‘Treasure Island’, as well as his novella, ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, but thi...
See more
Martin Luther King is the only American with a national holiday for his birthday. But he was not a great soldier or president or businessman. He wa...
See more
The history of Nepal is very troubled. Although the country is beautiful because of its mountains – Everest is in Nepal – and rivers, and its wonde...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Espionage
·
Upper-Intermediate
Mata Hari is one of the most famous spies in history and she has become a symbol of sexual temptation. In the end, she was shot as a spy in the Fir...
See more
A story of honour and revenge set in Corsica. A widely respected farmer lives by strict rules about what is right and wrong. However, his son break...
See more
Honour is a way of life in islands like Corsica. Hospitality is given to anyone who needs it but the treatment of people who break the unwritten ru...
See more
Mountains take our breath away. People get up early to watch the sun rise over them or charter planes to fly around them and climbers risk death tr...
See more
A great comic tale in which Saki describes the complicated plans made by an Englishwoman as she tries to go one better than her friend who has had ...
See more
Jeremy Bamber was sent to prison for the multiple murders of his family in 1986. It was a nasty and strange case. There were jealousies and rivalri...
See more
The Italian Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, called himself ‘Il Duce’ (or The Leader), just as his friend and ally Adolf Hitler used the German ...
See more
A family struggling with poverty places its hopes in an uncle who left his home country many years before. Although he had always been the black sh...
See more
Cowboy films are still popular. People like the brave men who faced many dangers and cared more about women and children than they cared about them...
See more
Nat Turner was a slave in America and was never famous in his lifetime. We know him today because, one day, he decided to kill the people who took ...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Science
·
Upper-Intermediate
Old age is not just a biological state but also a social concept. What was considered ‘old’ thirty years ago is a normal life span today and dying ...
See more
In this tale by Nobel Prize winning author Rabindranath Tagore a seven-year-old boy is told a story by his grandmother in which a king decides his ...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Biography
·
Upper-Intermediate
Oscar Wilde is possibly, after Shakespeare, the most famous dramatist in the English language. This is not due of the quality of his plays, althoug...
See more
For Lavoisier in revolutionary France and the religious socialist, Priestley, in England, science meant very different things. For the Frenchman wh...
See more
The story of Pablo Escobar who graduated from selling marijuana to exporting cocaine and built up a drugs empire that made him more powerful than g...
See more
Patty Hearst was born into a rich and powerful American family but in 1974 she was kidnapped by a terrorist group. Some weeks later she turned up o...
See more
Percy Toplis was a working class boy who loved to pretend to be from the upper class. He had many schemes to trick the rich out of their money and ...
See more
Thomas Hardy is known as a great poet and even greater novelist, who pushed the limits of literature in the late nineteenth century. However, his m...
See more
By the age of twenty, Phil Spector was one of the most famous and richest musicians in America. He produced records for some of the best pop groups...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Animals
·
Upper-Intermediate
In many cities, like London, pigeons are seen as a pest but people and pigeons have a long history together. They were used to send messages and ra...
See more
In this short article, you can read about modern day piracy in the sea around Somalia and learn about the pirates of hundreds, even thousands, of y...
See more
The twentieth century was a difficult time in South-east Asia - there was the Japanese war against China and many other countries; the atomic bombs...
See more
Every schoolchild knows Pythagoras’ triangle although we know very little about the man himself. We believe, however, that he hated beans so much t...
See more
You can go anywhere in the world and listen to Bob Marley. His songs of peace and freedom, his belief in Rastafarianism and his smoking of cannabis...
See more
Guy de Maupassant is France’s greatest writer of short stories and this is one of his most powerful. It is about an old woman whose son is killed a...
See more
Rivers play a vital role in the earth's water system and the development of human civilisation. This is an introduction to the great rivers of the ...
See more
For ten years Robert Hendy-Freegard somehow managed to keep five people in fear of assassination by the IRA and effectively imprisoned in their hom...
See more
When he was young, Stevenson was a disappointment to his family. He did not follow his grandfather and father into engineering, never worked as a d...
See more
Rock and roll means many different things to people over the world. Although it might be difficult to define exactly what it is, one thing is sure:...
See more
Erwin Rommel was a professional soldier. He fought in the First World War and again the Second World War when Adolf Hitler was the leader of German...
See more
A short history of rugby and the rules of the game. It started by accident during the 19th century at an English public school called Rugby, hence ...
See more
When Fidel Castro overthrew the government in Cuba and began to make his revolutionary society, he faced a problem at once: how to start the people...
See more
This is the story of the great Zulu chief, who led his people to victory at a time when they had given up hope. Shaka Zulu was a clever and origina...
See more
Shaun Greenhalgh couldn't sell his own paintings and so he started forging great artists’ work. His whole family was even when Shaun became very we...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Animals
·
Upper-Intermediate
Sheepdogs. Why do they risk their lives to protect sheep? How does a sheepdog kill a wolf, one of the most dangerous animals in European forests? W...
See more
The legendary detective investigates the disappearance of some valuable stones from a national treasure. All the clues point in one direction, but ...
See more
We of course know that Dr. Watson always helps his friend, Sherlock Holmes, in his cases. However, in this story it is Watson who brings the case t...
See more
A young man seems certain to be arrested and hanged for the murder of a retired builder but Sherlock Holmes believes he is innocent. Can he save hi...
See more
Sherlock Holmes is visited by a man who tells him about a society that financially supported people with red hair in pointless but lucrative employ...
See more
Europe is on the verge of war because of a document written by a too-impulsive head of state, which has been stolen from the home of the British Fo...
See more
Sherlock Holmes is not usually interested in the stories of young ladies. As he says himself, Dr. Watson is more of an expert in that area. However...
See more
Sherlock Holmes is asked to solve a mystery that saves a dead man’s reputation and shows that his son is innocent of the terrible murder of a drunk...
See more
In this story, Sherlock Holmes tries to understand why a man pays a music teacher double the usual salary to teach a small girl but also wear someo...
See more
Henry van Dyke tells the story of a man who spends his holidays moose hunting. On his way home, he tells a train driver how he hunted a magnificent...
See more
Simon Bolivar was a freedom fighter of enormous importance. He fought the Spanish and led six modern countries - Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecua...
See more
This powerful story is about a worried mother who is unhappy and ashamed in front of a guest at her home because she can't control her young son. H...
See more
This story is about a girl working as a servant. She is too young to work so hard and she is very tired, but she has to look after the baby when sh...
See more
Chekhov looks at the poverty and ambition of a clerk in this short story. He spends an evening in a depressing office when he should be out in the ...
See more
We know nothing about Socrates or his books. We only know what other people said or wrote about him. He died thousands of years ago in Greece. This...
See more
Saki's miserable childhood, brought up by his aunts in a very strict home, is reflected in this story where a child’s life and imagination is suppr...
See more
Guy de Maupassant was an extremely successful writer. He was wealthy and widely admired but he tried to kill himself. In this short story he explor...
See more
Suleiman was the greatest Turkish sultan. He made the Turkish empire the largest in the world and all Europe worried that he was going to make Euro...
See more
Table tennis developed when British soldiers in South Africa and India could not play tennis outside and started to use tables inside their houses....
See more
Tae kwon do is the martial art of Korea and one of the most popular in the world. It has taken a lot from Japan and China, but it has also become a...
See more
Ted Bundy is one of the most hated murderers in American history. He killed young women for no reason. Although he had many chances to get away fro...
See more
The Kennedy family is a political dynasty in America. J. F. Kennedy was the much-loved President who was assassinated in the early ‘60s and his you...
See more
Did you know that only two hundred years ago, countries in Europe did not only have different times but different days too? When we travel from Bri...
See more
The 47 ronin is one of the most famous stories from Japanese history. Their master killed himself because of a man who behaved very badly to him. T...
See more
This early science fiction story is about a kind of computer although it was written before they were invented. An American becomes involved in hel...
See more
An ancient family is haunted by a wizard's curse after the murder of his son in the thirteenth century. Hundreds of years later, the last Lord spen...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Science
·
Upper-Intermediate
The aquatic ape theory is an alternative to the savannah theory to explain how and why apes developed into human beings. It is a controversial subj...
See more
In 1905 the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against the officers in what is now viewed as a first step towards the Russian Revolut...
See more
This is the story of the Bedouin of Arabia, people who moved from place to place in the desert. They lived in tents and looked after camels and goa...
See more
A young doctor, whose true love is the scientific study of beetles, answers an advertisement in the paper asking for a strong, brave young doctor i...
See more
This article tells us how scientists explore where we came from and who we are. It talks about different ideas of who we are and why some early peo...
See more
This very short piece is a sad story about a little boy who catches a bird. His mother doesn't want him to keep it but he does with tragic results....
See more
The strange story of a man’s relationship with his favourite pet black cat, an animal that follows him everywhere, even in the streets. But he star...
See more
This is the story of the plague that spread across North Africa, the Middle East and Europe in the Middle Ages. The Black Death killed as much as a...
See more
A foreign doctor makes himself very popular with the local people because of his skill and kindness but suddenly disappears, leaving behind the lad...
See more
Bierce’s anonymous storyteller introduces us to an old man who lived alone, mixed with no-one, and had a terrible tragedy in his past that turned h...
See more
In this exciting story, Ambrose Bierce tells us about the terrible secret that lies in an old man’s past. His wife has died and the man has given u...
See more
This Stevenson was the creator of the legendary Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the dual personality which has become a part of the English language. This...
See more
Holmes is called to prove the innocence of a young man accused of murdering his father. The case seems clear-cut but, of course, there is more to i...
See more
In the early 1960s, in Boston, USA, in just a few weeks, a mad killer murdered six women, all over fifty-five years old, in their homes. People wer...
See more
A classic horror story about a magical force that can give the owner of the bottle it lives in three wishes. At first, the hero welcomes the bottle...
See more
The doctors told Francis Chichester that he had cancer and was going to die very soon. But Chichester decided to live his life very fast and very b...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Animals
·
Upper-Intermediate
A fascinating introduction to the camel. Camels have been used to help people travel and survive in the desert and they were used extensively durin...
See more
In this story, ‘Banjo’ Paterson describes one of the world’s favourite pets. He writes about the famous independence of the cat from the people he ...
See more
Turgenev tells the tale of a provincial doctor who, glad of the chance of educated company in the village where he lives, tells his patient the tra...
See more
Today, many people cannot enjoy football because of the dangerous fans that go to matches. They often don’t go to watch the match but to fight. But...
See more
A man and a married woman have been having an affair for a long time and the man is getting tired of the secretive lifestyle they must lead. While ...
See more
It was not many years ago that a doctor had to decide between operating to save a person’s life but perhaps killing him from the pain or leaving hi...
See more
When we think of orchids, we perhaps imagine five-star hotels or the wonderful country, Thailand. Because these exotic plants make us think of beau...
See more
Jimmy Thorpe’ is not well-known today but he was a goalkeeper for Sunderland football club in the 1930s. He died when he was 23 after a heart attac...
See more
Today, calculus is an essential part of modern mathematics. In the English-speaking world, Isaac Newton is often credited with its discovery, while...
See more
Arthur Conan Doyle is famous for his crime fiction, especially for his detective, Sherlock Holmes, but he also wrote science fiction and was well-k...
See more
A political scandal and miscarriage of justice in the late 19th century based on antisemitism caused a split in French society and had far-reaching...
See more
There are many stories and legends about the Ninja. They were expert assassins and spies and lived in mountains where their enemies could not follo...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
History
·
Upper-Intermediate
The Fall of Byzantine Constantinople and the Birth of Ottoman Istanbul. Istanbul is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. In 1453 it was c...
See more
One of the first colour horror films, Poe’s story became a box office smash hit in 1960. It was already the author’s most famous work. In it, a you...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Animals
·
Upper-Intermediate
The ferret has sharp teeth and is very aggressive. It was used for many years to help humans hunt for food and to control vermin. It is not needed ...
See more
We usually think of the computer as a very modern invention: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, maybe Alan Turing. However, this article takes us back two hun...
See more
Football is now big business but in the late nineteenth century, football clubs could not pay their players. Football was a game for people who lik...
See more
Katherine Mansfield lost her brother in The First World War and this story explores the feelings of two fathers whose sons were killed in that terr...
See more
Katherine Mansfield’s brother was killed in The First World War and, in this story, the writer shows the feelings of two fathers whose sons were al...
See more
We often hear that football is a dangerous game. Fans fight and even kill each other. Players hit each other on the field. But at the end of the ma...
See more
The French Revolution of 1789 changed the world. We all know the pictures of the guillotine, the machine that cut people’s heads off, but the Revol...
See more
One of Katherine Mansfield's finest short stories that highlights the contempt with which the upper-middle class viewed the poor. While preparation...
See more
When Europeans arrived in South America, they made empires and became unbelievably rich. They killed tens of thousands of local people but they als...
See more
Among the most successful writers of the English 19th century novel, Gaskell tells us about a young widow, who puts all her energy into her baby so...
See more
Oscar Wilde may have written this as a bedtime story for his two young sons. Like others of his children’s stories, it has a religious tone that is...
See more
In this wonderful story, the great Russian dramatist takes us into the world of the head teacher of a charity school who is very ill. He is success...
See more
Beer is the most popular alcoholic drink in the world and makes a fortune for the industry that promotes and sells it. But what were its origins? I...
See more
The biggest discovery in medicine of all time, the one that saved the most lives, was immunisation. The idea is simple: you put a very small amount...
See more
A lobotomy is an operation on the human brain. Doctors do lobotomies because they want to change people’s personalities. This article tells the ter...
See more
People could see Mars 5,000 years ago, the Babylonians thought it was coloured red and was angry and the Romans called the god of war ‘Mars’. Moder...
See more
Polo is a game that is thousands of years old. It probably came from Iran. The idea is to hit a ball with a long stick when you are riding a horse....
See more
Tea has a long history in Asia but was first brought from China to Europe about four hundred years ago. In the beginning, merchants put ready-made ...
See more
The sail was a revolution in travelling by water. It meant that boats could go much faster and people did not have to use their strength to push it...
See more
There can be few examples of cruelty and superstition more sadistic in western history than the treatment of so-called 'witches'. They were often o...
See more
India’s Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, wrote this sad story in Bengali about the son of a widowed mother, who struggles to take care of him a...
See more
In this classic story of Cossack life in the nineteenth century, Chekhov paints a picture of women and men living wild and carefree lives, while th...
See more
Always a subversive who tried to undermine upper middle class life in the early twentieth century, Mansfield here looks at a successful businessman...
See more
This story is about a man driven by an artist's desire perfection. He loves watching the girls as they collect strawberries and stop to drink at hi...
See more
The Kayan women are famous all over the world because they wear metal rings around their necks which make their necks seem like giraffes. This arti...
See more
The kidnapping and murder of the two-year old son of Colonel Lindbergh, the first man to fly across the Atlantic from the U.S. to France and a nati...
See more
The heroine of this story has decided that money is more important in a husband than love and a very rich man she knows is about to ask to marry he...
See more
In the 1960s, the Kray Twins were as famous in London as the Mafia was in the US. They used the same methods too: murder, violence and fear. They k...
See more
The Ku Klux Klan started after the southern states of America lost the war against the North in 1865. They wanted black people to be slaves. They l...
See more
In this short tale, F. Scott Fitzgerald introduces us to a man who was once successful but has been away – we never find out where – and has only j...
See more
Conan Doyle’s legendary detective, Sherlock Holmes, has made us forget that the author wrote many more stories about crime where his creation plays...
See more
Chekhov is the greatest teller of short stories in Russian, maybe world, literature. This one is about a happily married couple who have a lottery ...
See more
The Lusitania was an British ocean liner that the Germans sank in the First World War in 1915. More than 1,000 passengers, including women and chil...
See more
Kipling's tale of two working-class adventurers in nineteenth century British India must rank as one of his greatest works. Even the vast continent...
See more
Britain ruled more of the world than any other country in history and became rich and strong. The best part of the Empire was India, a huge and won...
See more
‘Banjo’ Paterson wrote many stories about animals and life in the wild in Australia, but there are not many which are as funny as this one about sh...
See more
Oscar Wilde wrote many short stories and this one, about an innocent young man, an artist and a beggar who is not quite what he seems, is both funn...
See more
This is a classic horror story about a charm brought to England by a soldier returning from India. It gives its owner three wishes but with awful c...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Animals
·
Upper-Intermediate
The mule is not a natural animal: it is a cross-breed between a donkey and a horse. It is useful to humankind though because it has the speed of on...
See more
Not too long after James Maybrick married his much younger wife, she was on trial for his murder. She was convicted but released some years later a...
See more
‘The Necklace’ is about a beautiful girl who was born poor wants the best things in life. When she and her husband are invited to a grand party she...
See more
Oscar Wilde was as famous for his sense of humour as he was for his plays and novel. In this short story, he builds a beautiful romance where a nig...
See more
Saki is the master of comic short stories which have surprising – even shocking – endings. In this very funny piece, a young man who is staying in ...
See more
In Britain, everyone lives for Saturday and Sunday, the weekend. But in Saudi Arabia, the weekend is Friday and Saturday. How did this happen and w...
See more
Edith Wharton's novels deal with the differences in society’s expectations of the behaviour of men and women. They often tend end tragically but th...
See more
Chesnutt has never received the fame he deserves as an author. He was criticised first for his radical beliefs and then, when he was old, for being...
See more
Charles Darwin argued that there was a clear link between monkeys and men but others said that the difference between the two was so great that the...
See more
A quick tour of the planets near and far describing the difference between planets and stars and why they keep turning around the Sun. (850 words)
See more
One of O. Henry’s funniest short stories about the kidnapping of a young boy which goes horribly – and often painfully – wrong. It will have you la...
See more
O. Henry knew about robbing banks and going to prison, having done so himself. Here he tells a story about a young bank robber who, after many succ...
See more
Set in an unhappy home which, although upper-class, always faces financial difficulties. This story is about the unexpected and exciting way that t...
See more
Everyone knows about Roman gladiators and their fights to the death in the arenas of the Empire. Many were slaves and fought because they were goin...
See more
The rose is the symbol of love in many western countries and it grows all over the world. In the ancient world, roses were so important that Rome s...
See more
The Samurai warrior class of Japan has a very long history. They were once a powerful political and military force that saved Japan from the Mongol...
See more
Despite many discoveries and theories dating back to ancient times, two hundred years ago we had not the slightest idea that fossils existed. A lot...
See more
This excellent short story explores the injustices that slavery created. A brave lawman refuses to allow his neighbours to hang an Afro-American su...
See more
Pushkin’s ‘The Shot’ is set at a time when a man would fight to the death if he thought he’d been insulted, just as the author did twenty-nine time...
See more
Dickens wrote this story in 1866 about a railway disaster. It’s his best short work, perhaps because he’d been in a train accident himself the year...
See more
In this powerful tale of official unfairness, the Russian writer, Garshin, describes how a railway employee takes revenge when he is badly treated ...
See more
Saki was a master of short, comic but sometimes cruel stories which made fun of the English upper-middle classes. Here, he describes the atmosphere...
See more
In the early twentieth century, a woman who could not find herself a husband in England was not complete. In this typical Mansfield story, a teach...
See more
The Spanish Civil War was one of the great battle grounds between the left and right wing during the 20th Century and it attracted artists, poets a...
See more
A handsome young man falls in love with a mysterious lady who seems to hide some great secret. When she will not tell him what it is, he leaves her...
See more
Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his horror stories but he also wrote detective and police stories. This one is about how a politician’s attempt t...
See more
This is a delightful story, told by one of the funniest writers in English, about a fiercely intelligent child who manages to escape a boring excur...
See more
Saki’s very funny short story is about a young boy who is so badly behaved that he cannot go out to the beach with his family. In fact, he didn't w...
See more
This very short story by the feminist American writer, Kate Chopin, examines the awakening of hope in a young, but sick, married woman, when she be...
See more
This very short Kate Chopin story is about a young married woman, who is told her husband has died in a train accident. Although she's upset, she a...
See more
Pi is one of the most important and strangest ideas in mathematics. It can't be exactly calculated and it is both irrational and transcendental. Wh...
See more
Wine comes in many different forms. Red, white and rosé, even ‘green’ wine, are all popular. For the wine lover, a good bottle is not only a drink,...
See more
The history of zero. It is hard to imagine what life was like before we had the number zero. Numbers were very long and extremely difficult to mult...
See more
Saki tells a very funny tale about a man on a train listening to the boring stories of an aunt as she tries to keep three small children interested...
See more
Most people know that the Venus Fly Trap catches and eats insects in its powerful ‘jaws’. But why did this plant develop? What were its origins? An...
See more
Henry Lawson is regarded as one of Australia's greatest writers. In this tragic and powerful story, a teacher's misjudgement leads to events that e...
See more
This very short horror story is about a strange old sea captain who lives alone and buys everything he needs with old gold coins. Three thieves dec...
See more
A nineteenth century equivalent of a disaster movie! A man's cycling holiday is interrupted by a natural catastrophe and terrifying escapes from ne...
See more
The the story and the film are famous. A huge ship was travelling from Britain to the United States a hundred years ago. It was the largest ship in...
See more
A few hundred years ago, a diplomat in Istanbul fell in love with a flower not found in western Europe. He sent some tulip bulbs home so that his f...
See more
Early in the seventeenth century, Sweden was a great empire and had one of the strongest armies in the world. The king wanted the biggest and best ...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
History
·
Upper-Intermediate
The Vietnam War is remembered as the war that the United States lost at the height of its strength as a superpower. For the Vietnamese it was anoth...
See more
Forests play a vital role in the life of our planet and everything that lives on it. Read about our relationship with forests throughout history, h...
See more
Chekhov's tale of an unlikely marriage between an older, poorly educated man and the beautiful daughter of a church caretaker who tries to make sur...
See more
In this very short story, Saki explores the idea that money is more important than blood. A very wealthy family has bought an old castle and are si...
See more
This classic of feminist literature describes the treatment of a late nineteenth century doctor’s wife as she suffers a nervous breakdown. The read...
See more
Thomas Edison left school as a child and became one of the richest and most successful businessmen in America. He was interested in everything and ...
See more
In this very short story, the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, gives his readers a simple truth. The story seems like a children’s tale as it i...
See more
The English word 'thug' is used to describe violent criminals and it comes from the word used to describe groups of criminals who murdered and robb...
See more
A man must make his way with his dog to safety across a frozen Alaskan wasteland but the temperature is dropping fast and he must stay dry and warm...
See more
A young soldier tells his friend a story about the horrors of war in North Africa. He remembers attacking a village and killing men and women, only...
See more
Toussant L'ouverture was a black slave in Haiti and, yet, he could take on the might of Napoleon's French Empire and secure independence for his is...
See more
Trofim Lysenko cared more about his career and fame than he cared for science or for his people. He caused the deaths of many scientists who argued...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
History
·
Upper-Intermediate
In the eighteenth century, a rich man of mixed Indian and European blood, rebelled against the Spanish rulers of Latin America. We will never know ...
See more
This story, from Joyce’s collection of short stories called ‘Dubliners’, introduces the reader to two young men who are not as respectable as they ...
See more
Guy de Maupassant was a young man when Prussia (a part of what soon became Germany) attacked and defeated France in a few weeks. This story is one ...
See more
This unhappy story is about two childhood friends – one charming and attractive and the other hard-working and loyal – who become business partners...
See more
Szabo was executed as a British spy in a prison camp in Germany at the age of 23 in 1945. She had been born in France and could speak French and En...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
History
·
Upper-Intermediate
Voodoo is an exotic religion, the subject of many films and the origin of zombies, the ‘undead’ who walk the land after they have been buried. Vood...
See more
by Read Listen Learn
·
Biography
·
Upper-Intermediate
W. H. Davies led an action-packed life and one that made his family very unhappy as a young man. He got into trouble with the police, lost a leg wh...
See more
The Washington Sniper took his ex-girlfriend’s teenage son out one day in 2002 and started shooting people he had never seen before and did not kno...
See more
Not so many people where hats nowadays but only fifty years ago in Europe and America nobody left the house without one. This article looks at the ...
See more
On 26 December, 2004, a tsunami hit the coastlines of countries as far away from each other as Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. More than a qu...
See more
It was Christmas 1914 and thousands of German, French and British soldiers were sitting in fields across Belgium. It was the first winter of the Fi...
See more
Aho’s story is now a phrase in the Finnish language, meaning new things are not always better than old ones. A farmer in the cold countryside of Fi...
See more
Most people learning or improving their English are in their teenage years or twenties. A lot of you have never heard of Frank Sinatra. But there a...
See more
Every night we go to sleep and, in the morning, get up again. But we do not understand a lot about why we need sleep or what our bodies do when we ...
See more
There is a myth that the human race is getting better: we have a far deeper understanding of science and medicine than a few decades ago, for insta...
See more
Yerba mate is a drink which originated in Latin America. It was so popular with the Catholic monks who came to the continent to spread their religi...
See more
This tragic tale, the only one in print today by the author, describes the remorse that a young widow feels when she looks back on how she treated ...
See more
Read · Listen · Learn