“... The harsh repression of protests in the province of Constantine by de Gaulle’s government in May and June 1945 – estimates range from five thousand to thirty thousand Muslim protesters killed – is dealt with in a single, matter-of-fact sentence: ‘In Algeria, an insurrection begun in the Constantinois … was put down by Governor General ...”

“... is the pillaging of the Strand by the Vikings. The ninth-century church of St Clement Danes may have been named in commemoration of the Great Heathen Army’s overwintering in London in 871-72. I shall think of Vikings huddling together for warmth when I walk from Embankment to Joe Allen’s, on the corner of Burleigh Street and the Strand, for birthday ...”

“... into the definition of the word liberty, and the meaning of the starry flag which waves, as you may have heard, o’er the land of the free’. Half the slaves on the Butler plantations were included in the sale. Most were field hands, but there were also domestic servants and skilled craftsmen, among them coopers, carpenters and blacksmiths. The catalogue ...”

“... of British agriculture today. The worst has not been and gone. It is yet to come. Still, one thing may already be clear: British farming hanged itself on the expectation of plenty.One day not long ago I was in the Sainsbury’s superstore on the Cromwell Road. Three of the company’s top brass ushered me down the aisles, pointing here, gasping there, each of ...”

“... recklessness and pluck, but also for his good humour, his sense of fun and his kindness. It may not seem very kind to insult a stranger then smack him in the head with all your might, but the other boy was most assuredly not a nice boy and my brother had probably heard ill of him somewhere along the line. Also, he was clever. He knew that if the other ...”

“... the place is solemn and still, though the area is part of the regular beat for Border Patrol. In May 2001, among dozens of crossings, a group of 26 migrants entered the Tucson Sector from Mexico. During a vigorous pursuit by Border Patrol, 14 lost their bearings, including three guides, ending up in a stretch of desert known as the Devil’s Highway, where ...”

“... Shortly after the murder, Mahmoud Abbas declared Juliano a shaheed, a martyr. But though he may have given his life to the Palestinian cause, he was not killed by an Israeli bullet. The man who shot him was Palestinian, and probably from the camp: no one else would have known how to navigate those streets, or how to disappear so quickly. The killing ...”

“... was a deliberately experimental, avant-garde purchase of a pizza, for 10,000 bitcoin, made on 22 May 2010. (The community marks the anniversary of the first transaction by celebrating Bitcoin Pizza Day. At current values, that pizza cost £2.77 million.) The first large-scale criminal application for bitcoin began life months later, early in 2011. Silk ...”

“... both of them, Madeleine as much as Francis. That they were religious and interested in mysticism may explain part of it, but the fact that they were old and made clear their loathing for Ireland’s pieties is also significant. They were warm and deeply engaged with the world and with each other. Many of us came away from their house inspired and cheered ...”

“... approach for any historian – or for anybody – which believes that, though the Emperor may indeed be wearing some clothes, it is essential to examine them all meticulously in the likelihood that they will turn out to be very much shoddier than he would like them to seem. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War I went to stay with Alan and ...”

“... this at very different ages, from about thirty-five to the limit of the mortal span. A grandmother may start out as tougher and handier than the young mother herself. Her role is likely to change distressingly. ‘I didn’t like it when she got really old,’ says one of the book’s contributors, ‘because she used to dribble when she was eating her dinner ...”

“... and in London, describes Boxer in his autobiography as ‘both Figaro and the Count’, which may suggest not a blend of patrician wilfulness and backstairs cunning but internal strife between the two. Presumably you had to know him well to get an inkling of that. More obviously he was handsome, dandyish, an upper-class socialist. He liked cricket, bridge ...”

“... such as microcentimetrically tolerant Rolls-Royce airplane engines, and this afternoon’s task may be the most exacting of all. He is gluing up the upper panel: six slim hexahedrons to be forced together, perfectly squared, without the least winding or washboarding – flat as a sheet of plate glass. John Hersey, The Walnut Door three four knock at the ...”

“... the rats had all been eaten, or had fled in terror.’ Rather confusingly, this story may not be apocryphal after all. The indefatigable Brunvand reveals that – uniquely – the tale has a genuine source: a report, in 1935, of one rather small reptile beneath the city streets, personally inspected by the New York City Sewer Commissioner. For the ...”

“... persona is a true reflection of his general character. There is a try-anything-once, devil-may-care extraversion about the big bruin that makes him want to learn to fly, drive too fast, stand up to his neck all day in freezing Scottish streams in the hope of a salmon and then sample every whisky known to man in the evening. Heaven help those who try to ...”