Did you know that coffee was recommended as protection against the bubonic plague in the seventeenth century? Or that tea was believed to make men "unfit to do their business" and blamed for women becoming unattractive? On the other hand, a cup of ch...

How did German intelligence agents in the First World War use dead fish to pass on vital information to their operatives? What did an advertisement for a dog in "The Times" have to do with the movement of British troops into Egypt? And why did Britis...