Produced by the BBC, The Secret History of Our Streets is a touching chronicle of Great Britain, as told through the lens of the changing landscapes of its cities and towns. Over the course of nine episodes and two seasons, the filmmakers draw out themes of class and gender, changing values, two world wars, and the rise and fall of an empire. On the site, viewers may peruse short clips from each...

Buried in Westminster Abbey (under a plain slab adorned with the words, Rare Ben Jonson), Ben Jonson was one of England's most renowned playwrights during the 17th century. A contemporary of Shakespeare, Jonson was born in 1572, educated at the Westminster School, and as a young man joined the theatrical company of Philip Henslowe in London. Shortly after joining the company, Jonson's second...

Britain, Representation, and Nineteenth-Century History (BRANCH) "provides users with a free, expansive, searchable, reliable, peer-reviewed, copy-edited, easy-to-use overview of the period 1775-1925." This website, which was launched in 2005 and is edited by English scholar Dino Franco Felluga, includes dozens of essays authored by over 100 contributing scholars about a range of topics related to...

British Council Film "is the link between UK films and filmmakers and new international audiences." Along with their work promoting a set of productive artistic and commercial relationships and networks, they have also digitized 80 remarkable short films. The films were originally produced by the British Council during the 1940s and were designed "to show the world how Britain lived, worked, and...

British history to some might be thought of as a dense thicket of county records, complex lineages, and other such foibles that make the story of these modestly-sized islands all the more delectable. Fortunately for those interested in these “histories”, there is the British History Online website. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, the site...

Driven by the principle that "oral history recordings provide valuable first-hand testimony of the past," British Library Sounds collects thousands of recordings from across the globe. The recordings are cataloged in various formats, from the interactive Sound Maps (featured in the 08-23-2013 Scout Report) to the Oral History section highlighted here. The Oral History collection seeks to "provide...

While the British Museum already has a number of online digital archives, it appears to be on the way to surpass its prodigious online collections with the Collect Britain Web site. The digitization project (which went online in May 2003) is the largest to date, as it contains over 100,000 images and sounds culled from the museum's holdings. The homepage has three main sections: Collections,...

Designed and maintained by Lee Jackson, an author and librarian, the Victorian Dictionary is a useful resource on Victorian London history during the 19th century. This site contains over 40 categories that range from architecture, to clothing and fashions, to dates and events, to entertainment and recreation, to words and expressions. The site also contains a bibliography containing most of the...

Earlier today, archaeologists working on a massive dig on the southern banks of the River Thames uncovered the oldest known plaque inscribed with the city's Roman name, Londinium. While the exact date of the plaque is unknown, it is believed to date from between 50 and 150 AD, and would most likely have been placed on some type of building or in a shrine. Equally important, the plaque offers some...

Created and maintained by David Nash Ford, this site offers an excellent introduction to the Celtic Kingdoms that existed in Britain and Brittany from the time the Romans left until well into the eleventh century. The site is essentially composed of two portions, the first of which provides overviews of the kingdoms by region (West Country, Midland and South Britain, Wales, Northern Britain, North...