Looking back: zoos

Visitors feed the penguins at London Zoo, June 1936. Photograph: Fox Photos/Getty Images

2 June 1838: Opening of the Manchester Zoological Gardens.

5 February 1913: A ‘Wilder’ London Zoo - ‘the idea is to produce a panorama of landscape in which the enclosed animals will have their being with something that will approximate their natural environment.’

23 August 1923: Beasts and birds for rich men and zoos - a clearing-house for the wild beasts of the world in London’s East End back yards.

8 September 1924: London zoo ants at war.

3 April 1928: London Zoo houses new orangutan family.

New born Orangutan baby Sakeepo nestles in its mother’s arms at Sri Lanka’s National Zoological Gardens. Photograph: M.a.pushpa Kumara/EPA

31 March 1932: Penguins arrive at London Zoo.

29 August 1961: Why chimps are no chumps - higher primates cannot stand monotony so hourly performances were organised to combat this.

24 August 1977: The zoo story’s sad ending: many are following a dismal trail into debt and liquidation.

27 January 2002: Marjan, the lion of Kabul, roars his last: one-eyed, 40 years old big cat found dead in his cage.

A keeper follows Marjan, a blind African lion in his cage in Kabul’s zoo, January 2002. Photograph: Oleg Popov/REUTERS

20 March 2013: Zoo architecture that’s full of animal magic – in pictures.

19 August 2014: Why zoos are good.

4 September 2014: Boozy zoo parties are a throwback to Victorian mad menageries.

Inuka, the first polar bear born in the tropics, swims in his new enclosure at Singapore Zoo, 2013. Photograph: Wong Maye-E/AP

23 March 2016: Sanctuaries or showbiz: what’s the future of zoos?