Laurence Earle

Few figures in history have seen their reputation rise and fall quite like Domitian (AD 51-96). The third and final ruler of the dynasty founded in AD 69 by his father Vespasian, he became one of the longest-serving emperors, praised during his 15-year reign as a living god, but later remembered as corrupt, murderous and deeply depraved.

Archaeologists have long been drawn to the Outer Hebrides, the windswept island chain that lies off Scotland’s north-west coast. For decades, the chief source of their fascination was to be found on the Isle of Lewis, where a number of prehistoric ritual sites were found to be clustered around the village of Callanish. More recently, however, attention has also been diverted to the island of South Uist, where in 2003 an extraordinary discovery was made.

Today, the Co-op group has 65,000 employees, £11bn in revenues, and thousands of shops around the country. Yes, there have been some high-profile hiccups in recent decades – but the movement which spawned it has come a long way since 21 December 1844, when a group of Rochdale textile workers pooled their savings to open a store selling basic commodities at fair prices.

According to the dictionary, it means simply ‘land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation’. But in the context of our human story, the word ‘jungle’ – which derives from the Hindi ‘jangal’ – has often taken on unfairly negative connotations.

A number of imaginative solutions to the global-warming crisis were on offer this month, as world leaders gathered in Glasgow to discuss ways of tackling climate change – but one subject that was not up for discussion was human sacrifice. As a fascinating new exhibition on the history and culture of Peru makes clear, however, the Inca and other pre-Columbian civilisations of the central Andean region had no such qualms.

It was, according to a famous speech made by US President Franklin D Roosevelt the following day, ‘a date which will live in infamy’. Shortly before 8am on Sunday 7 December 1941 – 80 years ago next month – 360 aircraft launched in two waves from carriers belonging to the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) made a surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Archaeologists have been among those paying close attention this week as delegates have gathered in Glasgow for the 26th UN Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26. Few would now disagree that man-made global warming is having a devastating effect around the world.

It’s a scary thought for parents. After an enforced pause in 2020, Halloween spending is expected this year to return to something like pre-pandemic levels – which in 2019 stood at £474m

When the painter Stanley Spencer unveiled his masterpiece, ‘The Resurrection, Cookham’ (1924-27), The Times called it “the most important picture by any English artist in the present century”. In this famous, dreamlike composition, now one of the highlights at Tate Britain, Spencer imagines biblical figures rising up from the dead in the tranquil setting of the graveyard of his local church, Holy Trinity, nestling by the Thames in the Berkshire village where he lived.