In 15th-century Europe, the apocalypse weighed heavily on the minds of the people. Plagues were rampant. The once-great capital of the Roman empire, Constantinople, had fallen to the Turks.

Ten plates used to print maps of the British Empire have been found in scrapyards. One of them, dated 1779, had been bought by a farmer in Norfolk to use as a mudguard for his tractor.