"The test was a resounding success", said Ben Jarvis of the Mars Advanced Rocketry Society (Mars), Britain's longest-running rocketry group.

BBC: Hybrid success for British rocket

This has been Britain's longest running hostage crisis for nearly 20 years.

BBC: PM hopeful for UK hostage in Iraq

But, for the most part, political leaders in Scotland as elsewhere will today pay tributes to one of Britain's longest serving and most forceful Prime Ministers.

BBC: Margaret Thatcher - The quintessentially English PM

The Prince of Wales is due to visit the set of the Street, Britain's longest-running TV soap, on 8 December, and has been offered the part of an extra.

BBC: Liz Dawn

The South West Coast Path, which wiggles for 1, 014 extremely undulating kilometres from Minehead in Somerset to Poole in Dorset via the shorelines of Devon and Cornwall, is Great Britain's longest national trail.

BBC: Walking Great Britain��s great coast

One of the boats taking part, the Amazon, also took part in the 1897 Diamond Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria, Britain's longest-serving monarch and the only other to reach the landmark 60 years on the throne.

CNN: Eyes of world on spectacular Thames royal pageant

Elizabeth has ruled since 1952 and is Britain's second-longest serving monarch, beaten only by Queen Victoria in terms of the number of years spent on the throne.

NPR: UK: Queen Hospitalized Over Stomach Illness

Britain's Oxford University used to nurture one of the longest traditions of anti-entrepreneurial prejudice in the world.

ECONOMIST: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

"This is a Budget to expand prosperity and fairness for Britain's families - and it is built on the foundation of the longest period of economic stability and sustained growth in our country's history, " he told MPs.

BBC: NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Brown cuts basic tax rate by 2p

These are the two best known and longest running monthly snapshots of the UK property market, provided by Britain's two biggest mortgage lenders, the Nationwide and Halifax.

BBC: House price surveys explained