Hold Ye Front Page

Hold Ye Front Page is an educational project published by The Sun newspaper. It comprises a website, www.holdyefrontpage.co.uk, in which significant events in world history and in the histories of science and sport are described by "mocked-up" Sun front pages accompanied by explanatory articles and pictures.

The format is based on four books published by The Sun: Hold Ye Front Page (1999), Hold Ye Front Page II (2000), Giant Leaps (2006) and On Me 'Eadline (2007).

The first book, Hold Ye Front Page, was a UK best-seller, published to commemorate the Millennium and documented the history of the last two millennia. It won a British Press Award in 2000 from judges who praised its educational content, wit and self-parody. Its sequel detailed history from the Big Bang to the Birth of Christ. Giant Leaps charted the history of science. On Me 'Eadline did the same with sport.

Material from the books was updated and combined with new documentary video footage before being placed online on the Hold Ye Front Page website, which launched in September 2011. It was praised by a number of academics including the particle physicist Professor Brian Cox, from the nuclear research facility CERN, who described it as a "superb" learning tool.

Examples of pages on the site, and from the first book, include:

  • "Send 'Em Rome: Brave Brit Warriors ready to hammer lousy legions" – The Roman invasion of Britain
  • "You Canute Be Serious!" – King Canute tries to stop the Waves
  • "Stormin' Normans" – Norman Invasion
  • "3 Lions On His Tunic: Ruthless Rizza Mauls Heathens" – Richard the Lion Heart
  • "The Joy Of Six" – Henry VIII
  • "The Bigger They Come The Armada They Fall" – The Spanish Armada
  • "The French Are Revolting" – The French Revolution
  • "Napoleon Blown Apart" – Napoleon Bonaparte
  • "Monkey Nutter" – Charles Darwin
  • "Nazi Piece of Work" – Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
  • "Monet For Old Rope" – Impressionist Painting

Famous quotes containing the words hold, front and/or page:

    “There is no woman’s sides
    Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
    As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart
    So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
    Alas, their love may be called appetite.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “And into the gulf between cantankerous reality and the male ideal of shaping your world, sail the innocent children. They are right there in front of us—wild, irresponsible symbols of everything else we can’t control.”
    —Hugh O’Neill (20th century)

    “There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)