Top 10 city foundation myths

324 CE CONSTANTINOPLE FOUNDED Constantine selects Byzantium as ...

I n 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That, at least, is what the famous rhyme tells us. Memorising such dates is a common experience of being taught history – a cliché superbly lampooned by the w

I greatly enjoyed your interview with Alice Roberts about her new book Domination, (Books Interview, September), and its argument that the church was essentially Rome rebadged, with its structures and

The street layout of New York is largely rectangular and geometric, but Chinatown’s Doyers Street is a throwback to the pre-grid-system city. Running one block, it’s a narrow, kinked street with a sha

Many people associate clans with Scotland, but the word originated in Ireland in the early Middle Ages. It derives from the Irish clann, meaning children, and is used to describe a highly organised hi

Three people who have declared themselves to be a “lost African tribe” have set up home in woodlands near Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, proclaimed it to be the “kingdom of Kubala”, and changed the