Silver Tales

Five tales of silver, from a mountain that bankrolled an empire to a man who drank himself blue. Where history and legend part company, the story says so.

• Potosí: the mountain that ate menThe Bolivian peak whose silver bankrolled an empire, at a terrible human cost.
• The SS Gairsoppa: silver from three miles downA wartime wreck, seven million ounces of silver and a record-breaking recovery.
• The Mildenhall Treasure: Roman silver on a Suffolk sideboardA ploughman's find, four secret years in a farmhouse, and Roald Dahl.
• The Beast of Gévaudan and the silver bulletThe French monster, the hunter who killed it, and a legend that never happened.
• Coins in the milk, and the man who turned blueThe real science behind an old wives' tale, and silver's strange side effect.