“... narratives and the Book of Acts took shape and found readers. By the end of the reign of Domitian, John had composed the Book of Revelation and targeted the Whore of Babylon. The Flavian house of Vespasian made serious efforts to counteract the disastrous impact of Titus’ victory on relations with Jews, not least by setting up Josephus safely in Rome as he ...”

“... when Donald Trump flew in to complain about a plan to put offshore wind turbines in the North Sea close to his luxury golf resort at Balmedie, near Aberdeen. I asked the Parliament’s press office if Sick Boy and Renton used the same room, maybe it’s the best one, they keep it nice for special visitors. ‘The scene was filmed in a committee room ...”

“... in 2008 at an archaeological site known as Malapa, in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage park north-west of Johannesburg; the other fossil, a 250,000-year-old Homo naledi metacarpal, was found in 2013 at another site in the park. In recent years Nash has been buying up sites in the area with the aim of creating a ‘world-class palaeotourism hub’. The ...”

“... insiders as a ‘two-pipeline company’, almost entirely dependent on its reserves in the North Sea and Alaska. Thatcher, sensitive to the danger of a famous British brand being swallowed up in a hostile takeover, urged BP to move aggressively into the cash-strapped Soviet Union. ‘Start some investment rolling,’ she told Browne, who was then the ...”

“... including first-rate 18th-century portraits by Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Arthur Devis, John Opie, Jonathan Richardson and Richard Cosway, among others. The small, unattributed canvas he disposes of in 1928 is not in the same league. But it does come with an intriguing back story. Most of Henry Howard’s family’s wealth originally came from sugar ...”

“... House (where I do not pee). It’s the home of the Lascelles family, an ancestor of which, John Lascelles, blew the gaffe on Catherine Howard, the king’s fifth wife, but was later culled himself in the purge of evangelicals during that dreadful monarch’s last years. I watch two of the now well-established red kites tumbling about the sky above the ...”

“... I saw no cowboys on television but plenty on the movie screen, from the Lone Ranger and Tonto to John Wayne, and I still have a picture of myself as a little boy in a cowboy outfit with a hat and chaps and toy pistols. It’s a small indication of how deeply influenced Cubans were by our mighty neighbour to the north, and ...”

“... though I’d have thought the chances of him persuading his mamma to come are pretty slim. John Gielgud was once telling me about Mrs Simpson and how smart she was. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘she’d have made a disastrous queen. Didn’t go to the theatre at all.’ 19 January. Alan Bates opens tonight at the Barbican in the RSC production of Antony ...”

“... anti-ministerial ‘Advice to a Painter’ satires were absurdly attributed to the royalist poet John Denham); and in the case of published books, the printer’s name and location could be disguised by the use of a false imprint.For Thomas Keymer in his beautifully detailed history, such strategies of evasion are one of the things that make seditious ...”

“... addressing himself to Irish history and contemporary politics ought always to bear in mind John Stuart Mill’s provocative remark, that it was not Ireland but England that was the exception: ‘Ireland is in the mainstream of human existence and human feeling and experience; it is England that is one of the lateral channels.’ Of the authors under ...”

“... show buildings that are still quite recognisable today; pictures of the ‘Cromwell curve’, with John Fowler’s concrete bridge of 1867-9, are evidence of the scale of engineering work now masked by later building and softened by vegetation. The railways have proved adequate. Reading the plans of the St Mary Abbots Hospital, on the other hand, shows how ...”

“... out from there, however gradually and with whatever evolutionary changes along the way, east and north across the world. So that ‘it seems that we all belong, ultimately, to Africa.’ Just how variously Torday’s scorpion has been at work may be seen in the parallel rise of specialised disciplines and bases for research, not least the study of Africa’s ...”

“... Joseph Ellis should now venture an answer to this question, having already produced biographies of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, as well as a book about the 1790s, Founding Brothers, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. Like many Americans, George Washington took arms against Britain in 1775 resignedly. He was 43, a veteran of the Seven Years’ War and a ...”

“... months he gained an immense following, not only in the Ottoman Empire but among Jews throughout North Africa, Europe and Central Asia. He also attracted quite a few non-Jewish adherents. The Sultan, fearing that Sabbatai might be trying to usurp his power, had him arrested and incarcerated in the Dardanelles, first in the notorious Bagno prison, then in ...”

“... Eastman was living in New York with Crystal, and through a friend of hers became an assistant to John Dewey at Columbia. Dewey was one of the leading philosophers in America, and his prestige beyond university philosophy departments was such that, as Eastman recalled, ‘rays of his influence may have helped to mould me long before I heard of him.’ The ...”