Henry Tudor @BritainLikeThis

Images: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (CC0): storm prints, Shovell mezzotint, 1735 allegory; John Pinkerton map (1818, PD); H1 replica, Daderot (CC0); own graphics. Music: "Ambient music test, Yamaha CK61", Wilfredor (CC0). AI voice.

22 October 1707: four Royal Navy ships lost off Scilly and more than 1,400 men dead. The Longitude Act followed in 1714, but the wreck alone didn't bring it about. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis AI voice.

Image: our own illustration.

Britain's first pillar boxes, on Jersey in 1852, were red. By 1859 the standard colour had become green, and people complained they couldn't find them. In 1874 the Post Office switched to red, repainting boxes as they came due. It took about ten years. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis

Image: Joseph Barber, Autumn Trees by a Lake. Yale Center for British Art, public domain (CC0).

Autumn and fall are both British words. "Autumn" came from French in the 1300s; "fall" grew out of "the fall of the leaf" and stood on its own by the 1600s. Both crossed the Atlantic. Britain slowly let "fall" go. America kept it. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis

Image: Storm at Sea with Shipwreck (1774). Rijksmuseum, public domain (CC0).

1/3 The day after Trafalgar, the fighting was over but the danger wasn't. By the evening of 22 October 1805 a full gale was blowing, and Collingwood, in command after Nelson's death, took the battered fleet out to sea rather than anchor. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis

3/3 The news was slower still. HMS Pickle reached Falmouth on 4 November, and Lt John Lapenotière raced 271 miles (436 km) by coach to the Admiralty, arriving at 1am on 6 November: "Sir, we have gained a great victory, but we have lost Lord Nelson!"

2/3 The storm lasted until 27 October. Most of the captured ships were lost or wrecked on the Spanish coast near Cádiz; only four stayed in British hands. Nelson's body was kept in a barrel of brandy for the voyage home.

Images: Uffington White Horse from the air, Dan Huby (public domain); NASA/USGS satellite view (PD); W.C. Plenderleath plate (1892, PD); own illustrations. Music: "Ambient music test, Yamaha CK61", Wilfredor (CC0). AI voice.

The Uffington White Horse is about 3,000 years old. Its lines are trenches packed with chalk, and grass would swallow them if people stopped clearing it. They haven't. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis AI voice.

Image: Houses of Parliament from the river, Photochrom print (1890s). Library of Congress, public domain.

Strictly, Big Ben is the bell, not the tower: the Great Bell that strikes the hours. The tower itself was called the Clock Tower until 2012, when it was renamed Elizabeth Tower for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis

Image: Ferdinand Joubert, Lord Nelson at prayer (1854). National Library of Wales, public domain.

21 October 1805. At Trafalgar, Nelson's 27 ships defeated 33 French and Spanish ships, and Nelson was killed. Every year around this date, the Royal Navy holds Trafalgar Night dinners. The toast is to "the Immortal Memory", drunk standing, in silence. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis

Image: Henry Hoppner Meyer, Sir Robert Peel (1849). National Library of Wales, public domain.

Peelers first, then bobbies. Both nicknames for British police officers come from one man: Robert Peel, the Home Secretary whose Metropolitan Police first walked London's streets in September 1829. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis

Images: Thomas Burke (Yale Center for British Art, CC0); John Gilbert (1884); A.J. Church, Henry the Fifth (1889); N.H. Nicolas (1832-33); T. Mante (1800); First Folio (1623). Public domain. Music: "Lofi music 001", Luisalvaz (CC0). AI voice.

Agincourt, 25 October 1415. Mud, stakes and a much bigger French army. Then in 1599 Shakespeare wrote 'we few, we happy few', and England never let it go. #WhyIsBritainLikeThis AI voice.