“... fell away in the 20th. In 1991, the Sumo wrestler Takanofuji was weighed at 21 st 6 lbs. In 1924 John Rodney Bastard weighed 2 st 9 lbs; ten years later he was 8 st 10 lbs. Trust in Berry Bros counted for a lot: that a hundredweight of coffee really was a hundredweight has always been everything; that Byron really did weigh 11 st 5 lbs; that the contents of ...”

“... dance was structured episodically: it included a runaway slave, scenes from Harper’s Ferry and John Brown’s execution, and a play within a play of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Graham incorporated all of these elements into her scenario. She also added biblical quotations to link the episodes. The first two lines read: ‘This is a legend of living in the ...”

“... of information legislation was introduced by the Swedish parliament in 1766. Two centuries later, John Moss pushed the Freedom of Information Act through the US Congress. American journalism forums are often peppered with tales of FOIA intransigence. In his quixotic new book, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act ...”

“... becoming an annual tradition. We went through Slough, and one slogan we chanted was a riposte to John Betjeman’s poem, with its call for ‘friendly bombs’ to fall on the town: ‘Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Slough – THINK NOW!’In the summer Charlotte worked in London as a volunteer for the Africa Bureau, an anti-colonial think tank and part of the ...”

“... cruel and unenlightened Catholic zealots. Thomas Eakins visited Spain in 1869, followed later by John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt and others, bringing back visual and written descriptions of a country they thought both colourful and charming. The ‘Spanish craze’ reached epidemic proportions in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of ...”

“... comrades.And with a frog in her throat she replied– I’m behind you. One hundred per cent.The John Matthews of the poem ends up with a sentence of 15 years. Norma Kitson’s husband, David Kitson, was sentenced to 20 years for work connected with the early days of the ANC. Like Dulcie, she was a hundred per cent behind him and remained so. Her spirit is ...”

“... Benjamín Labatut (Pushkin, £20), which is an astonishing scenario of the Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann. He was a helpless genius, who laid down principles that were vital in the development of computers, game theory and our understanding of evolution (he was a father to fathers), and in the decision at Los Alamos to use implosion for the Bomb. I ...”

“... known stronghold.In 1858, two English ornithologists went to see the great auk for themselves. John Wolley and Alfred Newton travelled to the south-west peninsula of Iceland, hoping to visit Eldey and return with some specimens to add to their collections. Newton even dreamed of capturing a live auk for London Zoo. But their trip was a failure. Bad weather ...”

“... prevailing over steel tanks and Israeli-made loitering munitions blowing up rusty 1960s Howitzers. John Antal, a retired US army colonel and military analyst, called it ‘the first war in history won primarily by robotic systems’. It’s true that Armenia’s Soviet-era air defence systems were no match for Turkish-built drones and other imported military ...”

“... with gold embroidery and a ruff so large her head looks as if it were served up on a plate like John the Baptist’s.A portrait of Katherine’s nephew Richard Sackville may have been intended to mark the lavish festivities, in February 1613, for the marriage of James I’s daughter Princess Elizabeth to Frederick V, the Elector Palatine. Richard – a ...”

“... years. The best painters of the period were their friends and fellow alumni of the Slade: Paul and John Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson, Edward Wadsworth, William Roberts and David Bomberg. They were all influenced, directly or indirectly, by Fry’s Post-Impressionist exhibition of 1910, which introduced the British to Continental art, especially Cézanne, but they ...”

“... hat, velveteen suits and collection of hundreds of umbrellas, he resembles no one so much as John Steed in The Avengers – a show much loved in France, and still running weekly on TV there under the title Chapeau melon et bottes de cuir. Satie himself stressed the Englishness of his humour (which he said was ‘reminiscent of Cromwell’s’) and would ...”

“... the impression McEwen made in his life. He was born into a Scottish gentry family, the son of Sir John McEwen, Conservative under-secretary of state for Scotland, and his wife, Brigid Lindley. Rory and his five brothers and one sister grew up in Berwickshire in the family’s Palladian mansion, Marchmont. Commenting later on his interest in Redouté, he wrote ...”

“... scholar Ilan Stavans says he made it more American. Maybe, and not because he was trying to be John Berryman avant la lettre.) The chronology by Stephen Hart in Clayton Eshleman’s 700-page The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo (2009) is a compilation of Vallejo’s most atrocious dramas. A murderous riot, tragic love ...”