Volume: 56 Issue: 12

York Membery sings the praises of the great wartime leader on the ninetieth anniversary of his coming to power.

Charlotte Crow steps inside the V&A Museum of Childhood in London’s East End, where the second phase of a £4.7 million development has just reached completion.

December 18th, 1856

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant looks at the origins of some of Dickens’ best-loved characters, and finds clues in the work of cartoonists of the novelist’s youth....

Fidel Castro's first, unsuccessful attempt at overthrowing the Cuban regime began on December 2nd, 1956.

Martin Evans looks at the events of 1956 and the French war on terror, both at home and elsewhere, and how this was a turning point for French fortunes in the...

A recent government initiative suggests Britain is failing in its policies towards children in care. Jad Adams explains how similar concerns a hundred years ago lay...

Sebastian Wormell introduces the Polish city that survived the worst of the Second World War.

While Hezbollah again hit the headlines during the summer, its historical roots are less familiar. Andrew Arsan traces the political emergence of the Shi’a...

Thoughts from our readers at the end of the year.

George Bernard Shaw influenced the Abdication Crisis with a short play that has been forgotten in the last seventy years. Stanley Weintraub remembers it, and we...

The premiere of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at the Vienna opera house on December 23rd, 1806, was not a success.

It is rumoured that George W. Bush’s preferred reading recently has been Andrew Roberts’ updating for the twentieth century of Winston Churchill’s History of the...

Geza Vermes looks at the Christmas stories in the Bible with a historian’s eye.

Alison Barnes sets the record straight on who was really responsible for introducing this popular custom to Britain.

By George Bernard Shaw. First published December 5th, 1936, in the Evening Standard.

Forget Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher, says Klaus Larres; Winston Churchill was the supreme prevaricator when it came to giving up power.

As  the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross is celebrated, Richard Vinen looks beyond the individual acts of heroism that have merited the honour, to the wider...

Nicholas Stargardt explores Adam Tooze's masterpiece on re-writing the history of the Nazis and Second World War.