World

In 1929, Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie gave his rights to a London children’s hospital; 97 years later, the gift still supports seriously ill children (Image Credit: GOSH Hospital) A fictional boy who never wanted to grow up has helped support generations of seriously ill children in London. In 1929, Scottish author J. M….

PC: Marine Accident Investigation Branch On the evening of 16 November 2023, the prawn trawler Sustain ran aground on rocks at the entrance to Loch Broom, north-west Scotland, while returning to Ullapool. The vessel had left port in the early hours of that morning to begin day 4 of its fishing run. According to the…

James Patterson raised his 2015 school library donation to $1.75m, helping 467 US libraries (Image Credit: ALA) A flood of requests from schools revealed how badly many libraries needed support, prompting bestselling author James Patterson to increase a donation he had originally planned at $1.25 million. In March 2015, Patterson announced the pledge in partnership…

Rubber vine began its Australian story as a garden ornamental brought from Madagascar, and it has since become one of the country’s most troublesome weeds. Left unchecked, this glossy, trumpet-flowered climber can scramble up to 30 metres into tree canopies, blanket creek lines, smother the native vegetation beneath it, and form dense thickets. It also…

Jackie Chan’s appeal was simple: if fans could spare a dollar, he would match it and put both contributions towards building schools for children in remote parts of China. The “Build a School for a Dollar” project turned small gifts into a shared effort, inviting children and adults around the world to contribute whatever they…

A 1904 bridge in New Zealand has outlived the road traffic it was built to carry. The Mangaweka Cantilever Bridge spans the Rangitīkei River in the central North Island, where its steel trusses have stood for more than a century. Heritage New Zealand reported that when a routine inspection in 2016 found serious structural deterioration,…

Taylor Swift’s $4 million gift to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2012 helped create a dedicated education centre in Nashville. The space was designed for more than music lessons: it would give children and families room to learn, experiment and engage with country music’s history. Fourteen years later, the centre is…

Spectral imaging expert Bill Christens-Barry and Debora Mayor of the Weissman Preservation Centre Prepare HLS MS172 for imaging. Image Credit: Harvard Law Today Harvard Law School bought a stained and faded parchment in 1946 for just $27.50, believing it was an ordinary later copy of the Magna Carta. The document was catalogued as dating from…

In February 1969, Beth Temple agreed to meet a surgeon she had never met after colleagues decided the two might suit each other. Beth was a young mother and teacher. Dr Arvid Temple was an older doctor with a dairy farm in eastern Will County, Illinois, which he had bought several years earlier. They married…

A New York teenager who lost her father and four sisters in a devastating house fire was at the centre of a legal dispute months later, after relatives who raised more than $100,000 to support her allegedly failed to hand over most of the money. According to a 2019 report by WWNY-TV and court documents…