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| Article on Oscar Wilde
Alfred Lord Douglas's outraged father, the marquess of Queensberry, left at Wilde's club an ill-spelt card saying 'To Oscar Wilde posing Somdomite'. Wilde sued him for libel and lost the case.
The inevitable result was Wilde's arrest and prosecution for homosexuality, an illegal act at the time. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour
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The fatal card from Queensberry to Oscar Wilde in 1895 (National Archives, Kew)
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| History of Writing
In about 3200 BC temple officials in Sumer develop a reliable and lasting method of keeping track of the animals and other goods which are the temple's wealth.
On lumps of wet clay the scribes draw a simpified picture of the item in question. They then make a similar mark in the clay for the number counted and recorded. When allowed to bake hard in the sun, the clay tablet becomes a permanent document
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Cuneiform tablet recording the allocation of beer, probably southern Iraq, c. 3000 BC (British Museum)
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| Article on the Cerne Giant
The Cerne Giant is Britain's best-known phallic image, on a hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset.
This uncompromising figure of male virility is 55m/180ft tall and is composed of lines cut in the green turf, exposing the white chalk beneath
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The Cerne Giant (Fotofile CG)
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| History of Ireland
The Sinn Fein members have no intention of taking their seats at Westminster. Instead, they assemble in Dublin as the Dáil Eireann (Assembly of Eire). Officers are elected: Collins for Finance, de Valera as President.
De Valera is once again in gaol in Britain; this is as yet a national assembly only in name. But two years of violence will change that
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Eamonn de Valera as a wasp stinging the British prime minister, Lloyd George, 1920 - Enlarge on linked site
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| History of French art
The earliest porch of Chartres cathedral - the triple entrance in the west façade - introduces Gothic sculpture in its most extreme form.
Each of the biblical kings and queens stands on a tiny platform projecting from a tall, thin pillar. To suit their circumstance, their bodies are impossibly elongated within the tumbling pleats of their full-length robes. Yet their faces, by contrast, are realistic and benign
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Chartres Cathedral - some of the biblical kings and queens flanking the entrance in the west façade (Fotofile CG)
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