Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online.
Jonny Wilkinson: rugby union superstar whose drop-goal in the last minute of extra-time gave England the World Cup in 2003. Not since England had won the Soccer World Cup 37 years before had the country experienced such important sporting success.
In 1588 Sir Francis Drake was vice admiral in command of the English fleet (under Lord Howard of Effingham) when they overcame the Spanish Armada that was attempting to invade England. The most famous anecdote about Drake's life tells that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards. Source: Wikipedia
The Last of England (1988): directed by Derek Jarman. Plot Summary: The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. Source: IMDb
14-0: The Sheffield and District Sunday Football League has set this score as the maximum that any newspaper is allowed to report on. Any heavier losses – such as the 29-0 scoreline between Brampton Rovers and Waltheof of Sheffield in 2004 - may not be reported because the children who had been defeated would feel humiliated. Source: BBC Sport
The Times is a national daily newspaper, published in London. For much of its history it was regarded as without rival, the 'newspaper of record' for Britain and played an influential role in politics and shaping public opinion to foreign events. More recently, since being controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, it has tended to reflect its proprietor's conservative political views. The Times is sometimes referred to by people outside the UK as The London Times or The Times of London in order to distinguish it from the many other Times papers. Source: Wikipedia
Land of Hope and Glory: an English patriotic song, used as the English anthem at the Commonwealth Games. See lyrics
Spotted Dick: a suet pudding with currants embedded in it. See recipe
Some of the most famous words in English literature come from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
"To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."
An anagram of this sentence is:
"In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."
Source: WordSmith.org
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer: “one of the landmarks of English literature, perhaps the greatest work produced in Middle English and certainly among the most ambitious. It is one of the few works of the English Middle Ages that has had a continuous history of publication”. Read more
October 14, 1066: William the Conqueror’s Norman forces defeated king Harold’s Anglo-Saxon forces at the Battle of Hastings, thus removing any further organized Anglo-Saxon resistance and paving the way for him to be crowned King William I on Christmas Day of the same year. Read more
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