The name Lancelot 'Capability' Brown has become synonymous with the eighteenth-century English landscape garden: between 1751 and 1783 his consultancy handled over 170 major commissions. Ruthlessly efficient, he could stake out the 'capabilities' of a particular terrain within an hour on horseback. Rising to the position of Master Gardener to George III, his trademark features included bald lawns, clumped trees, undulating lakes and enclosing belts of woodland on the estate's perimeter. With this standard park formula Brown and his followers held the commercial monopoly on garden design well...

For the first half of the 20th century Great Britain led the world in motorcycle design and production, exporting its products to countries in every section of the globe. However, as the second half of the century began in 1960 this once great industry commenced what was to be a terminal decline. During the 1960s and '70s Britain still manufactured a wide range of machines, but a combination of poor management, lack of investment, foreign competition (notably from Japan), and the arrival of the small, affordable car transpired to effectively sound the death knell of the British motorcycle by...

In Victorian times the steam engine was almost the only source of mechanical power. Thousands of these engines were at work driving machinery in factories and pumping stations throughout Britain, but following the development of the electric motor steam power has become virtually extinct in British industry. Ironically, with their disappearance from commercial use, more engines are available for public viewing than ever there were during their heyday, and some can be seen operating under steam in the places where they spent their working lives. To most people these engines will seem complex...

Garden Cities: the phrase is redolent of Arts and Crafts values and nineteenth-century utopianism. But despite being the culmination of a range of influential movements, and having global influence themselves, in fact there were only ever two true, self-contained Garden Cities in England - far more numerous were Garden Suburbs and Villages. Crystallised in England by planning visionary Ebenezer Howard and executed largely by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, the movement arose from nineteenth-century settlements like Port Sunlight (and, earlier, Saltaire and Akroyden), and also from the City...

In the early 1970s, video arcade games sprung to life with the advent of Pong and other coin-operated games. Within just a few short years, if you had a quarter, you could go to the video arcade and play Space Invaders, Asteroids, or Pac-Man. If you were lucky enough to have an Atari system hooked up to your television, you could play Frogger or Galaga at home. By the early 1980s, arcade and video games were entrenched as a pop culture phenomenon, with players spending hours in arcades racking up as many points as possible. Arcade games were everywhere: restaurants, bowling alleys, department...

For almost two thousand years, the pottery made by the Indians of America's Southwest has remained a vital art. Today, more than twenty Pueblos and tribes make pottery within the tradition, each with a distinctive style. Many of those local styles have persisted for hundreds of years. In prehistory, beautiful pieces had high trade value, and the finest contemporary pieces command prices appropriate to fine art of any type. Potters like Nampeyo, Maria Martinez and Juan Quezada achieved worldwide fame. Yet despite its history and the skill of its artists, Southwestern Indian pottery remains...

Though beer is one of the oldest beverages around, beer can collecting--particularly in the United States--really picked up steam in the 1930s when beer in cans first appeared. Since then, beer can collecting and breweriana has become vastly popular, with a variety of clubs and associations springing up across the country and around the world. Brewery collectibles became especially popular in the 1970s, and today breweriana remains a popular pastime, especially with the onset of the microbrew revolution. Author Kevin Kious explores the history of beer and collecting in Breweriana. Kious looks...

Tombstone, Bodie, St. Elmo, Silver City. These are some of the enduring legends of the Old West- ghost towns and mining camps that dot America's landscape and colour the history of the country. Literally thousands of ghost towns are scattered throughout the West, with some states boasting hundreds of these abandoned boomtowns These relics, whether falling down or revitalised, attract thousands of visitors every year. Many of these ghost towns and mining camps are protected by the National Park Service or the Bureau of Land Management, and visits are carefully regulated in order to preserve...

The 1950s was the first decade when American fashion became truly American. The United States had always relied on Europe for its style leads, but during World War II, when necessity became the mother of invention, the country had to find its own way. American designers looked to what American women needed and found new inspirations for American fashion design. Sportswear became a strength, but not at the expense of elegance. Easy wear materials were borrowed for producing more formal clothes, and versatile separates and adaptable dress and jacket suits became hallmarks of American style....