Volume 59 Issue 3 March 2009

The Imperial War Museum has appointed its first female Director Diane Lees. Juliet Gardiner asks her about her vision for the museum, both in London and at its various outposts around the country.

Henry Tudor invoked providence to gain his throne in 1485, but it was skilful use of heraldic and religious imagery, as well as promotion of the cult of Henry VI that ensured he retained it.

The role of exiled Czech cartoonists in Britain during the Second World War is often overlooked, writes Mark Bryant.

In 1947, as Zionist insurgents wreaked havoc, British special forces in Palestine adopted counterinsurgency tactics that attracted worldwide condemnation. David Cesarani discusses a scandal whose ramifications persist to this day.

In 1709 Russia emerged as a major power after a clash of armies in Ukraine. Peter the Great’s victory, Derek Wilson argues, had repercussions that last to this day.

With a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as far away as ever, James Barker looks back to Britain’s occupation of the region and the efforts made by the future Viscount Montgomery to impose peace on its warring peoples.

As an integrated system of politics, economy and religion evolved in Europe around the year 1000, the figure of the Virgin Mary – so central to the lives of monks and nuns – became the core of a widely shared, though highly varied, European identity, says Miri Rubin.

The famous London store opened to the public on March 15th, 1909.

The most influential of 19th-century Russian wits was born on 31 March 1809.

Richard Cavendish remembers Israel's own Iron Lady, who became Prime Minister on March 17th 1969