Images Dated 15th December 2015

The death of Cleopatra

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, on her death bed. Cleopatra VII Philopator was a pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt. She came from a Macedonian Greek family and is known for her beauty and her dramatic death, in which she killed herself using an asp (Egyptian cobra) to bite her on the breast. From a bound volume of "Chatterbox", edited by J Erskine Clarke and published by Wells Gardner, Darton & Co, London. Copies of a children's weekly magazine dated from 20 November 1886 to 5 November 1887

© Linda Steward

Forest of Spotted gum (Corymbia maculata)

Forest of Spotted gum (Corymbia maculata), Red Point, Jervis Bay National Park, New South Wales, Australia

© Michael Van Ewijk/AUSCAPE All rights reserved

Australian, Corymbia, Endemic To Australia, Eucalypt, Eucalyptus Maculata, Flora, Forest, Gumtree, Landscape, Myrtaceae, Myrtales, National Park, Native, Nature, Plant, Scenery, Scenic, Smooth Bark, Tourism, Travel Destinations, Tree, Trees, Vegetation

Women finding themselves suddenly unemployed in 1919

"Good-bye-e-e!" These girls marching off to pastures new seem a jolly bunch, although for the 750000 women who found themselves suddenly unemployed in 1919, the choices of "new jobs" were very limited. Women who were made redundant were given two weeks pay in lieu of notice, and their train ticket home. Subsequently, they would receive six months unemployment benefit, although those who chose to remain on benefit rather than accept available work - usually domestic service - were the subject of virulent contempt. Those women who continued in employment, particularly if married, were accused of being greedy, only holding onto men's jobs in order to earn themselves a little "pin money". Women did continue to be employed in clerical and shop work after the war, but, broadly speaking, both sexes were complicit in steering a return to pre-war gender roles and employment patterns. Date: 1918

© Illustrated London News/Mary Evans