In the centuries before universal suffrage, petitioning was an indispensable tool to represent public opinion in the U.K.

Every generation has its own Robin, adapted to fit the needs of the time

This was one instance where disinformation, fear and ignorance worked as a force for good

"My good friend Roosvelt," opens a letter a young Castro sent to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, written on Nov. 6, 1940

On Sept. 16, 1890, just before he was due to demonstrate his films in public for the first time, he boarded the Dijon to Paris train and was never seen again.

Jane Fiddick, a junior library clerk who joined in 1963, is likely to have been the first woman officer of the House of Commons