Recording of the week: wonderful Weingartner

This week’s selection comes from Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music Recordings. This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte and next year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven. Both men, known the world over by a single name, are joined in history…

The Stonewall Riots: I wouldn’t have missed it for the world

Photographer Leee Black Childers remembers the night that began the Stonewall Riots.

Michael Ryle and the development of the House of Commons select committee system

Forty years ago today the House of Commons debated proposals to restructure its select committee system. See this blog by Emmeline Ledgerwood to find out more.

Recording of the week: Frank Land OBE – from Nazi Germany to the tea shop electronic brain

This week’s selection comes from Dr Tom Lean, Project Interviewer for An Oral History of British Science. Amongst the awards in this month’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list was a much deserved OBE for An Oral History of British Science interviewee Frank Land, Britain’s first professor of information systems and a…

Recording of the week: Leonardo da Vinci’s watery obsession

This week’s selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife & Environmental Sounds. One of the major themes of the library’s current exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: A Mind in Motion is water. From the workings of underwater breathing apparatus to the formation of waves, Leonardo had a lifelong fascination with…