An unexploded German bomb from WWII has been uncovered at a building site in Southampton, England.

Hampshire police said the 45kg (100lb) device was found by construction workers in London Road at 1005 GMT.

A 200m (220yd) area was cordoned off and buildings evacuated.

Some people are now being allowed back in but the device is still being inspected by a team from the Royal Engineers who hope to move it soon.

Office workers and other people were being allowed back into the cordoned off area if they had a legitimate reason to go back.

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A new book is claiming that the legendary Robin Hood was kind of a loan shark, stealing from the rich to lend to the poor.

John Paul Davis, the author of the new book, cites scenes from A Gest of Robyn Hode, one of the earliest references to Robin Hood which dates from the 1500s, to support his theory.

In the ballad, Robin is approached by a knight who is indebted to an abbot and asked for a loan. Robin asks the knight if he has a guarantor, then agrees to give him the money, to be repaid over a year.

He asks Little John to count out £400 from his treasury.

Later in the ballad, which is written in Middle English, the knight returns to see Robin, and with his debts to the abbot cleared, offers to repay the loan together with an extra deposit charge.

Robin, however, declines the repayment, saying he has already received the money after stealing it from the abbot himself as a punishment for his greed, and tells the knight that it would be wrong to take the money twice.

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The following are all the articles on A Blog About History for the week of March 1-5, 2010.

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Deterioration of a 16th century painting of Queen Elizabeth I has revealed a mysterious coiled snake in her hands.

The serpent was depicted being clasped in the Tudor monarch’s fingers in the original version of the work – but it was painted over at the last minute and replaced with a more decorative bunch of roses.

Deterioration over time has meant the snake has revealed itself once more, with its outline now visible on the surface.

A serpent was sometimes used to reflect wisdom, prudence and reasoned judgment, but the scaly creatures are also linked to notions of Satan and original sin.

The gallery suggested the snake’s removal may have been due to the ambiguity of the emblem.

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An international panel of experts have come to the conclusion that a space impact was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.

They reached the consensus after conducting the most wide-ranging analysis yet of the evidence.
Writing in Science journal, they rule out alternative theories such as large-scale volcanism

The analysis has been discussed at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in the US.A panel of 41 international experts reviewed 20 years’ worth of research to determine the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass extinction, around 65 million years ago.

The extinction wiped out more than half of all species on the planet, including the dinosaurs, bird-like pterosaurs and large marine reptiles, clearing the way for mammals to become the dominant species on Earth.

Their review of the evidence shows that the extinction was caused by a massive asteroid or comet smashing into Earth at Chicxulub on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

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