Description of writing or speech in which a person strongly attacks or defends a particular view or argument.
Polemical
Fact of the Day
In the Middle Ages, land could be held from the monarch in return for a service, such as holding the king's head as he crossed the Channel by boat.
Quote of the Day
"Water knee deep and up to the waist in places. Rumours of being relieved by the Grand Fleet.
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~ British First World War soldier writing about the trenches in his diary
On This Day
193 Roman emperor Pertinax was stabbed to death by his Praetorian Guard.
845 Vikings sacked Paris, possibly led by Ragnar Lothbrok. They left after being paid 7000 livres of gold and silver.
1917 Women were recruited for service with the British army in a non-nursing capacity for the first time.
1941 Writer Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse in Sussex.
1987 Maria von Trapp, who provided the inspiration for The Sound of Music, died of heart failure, aged 82.
1991 A jury returned a verdict of 'accidental death' at the inquest into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.