2010

R.C. Richardson describes the fortunes of young women driven by poverty into domestic service. A number fell victim to predatory masters and ended up with...

Richard Cavendish remembers the attempted coup against the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, in 1960.

Ben Wilson visits the History Today archive to examine...

R.C. Richardson describes the fortunes of young women driven by poverty into domestic service in early modern England. A number fell...

A solution to the turmoil in the Middle East seems as far away as ever. But, says Martin Gilbert, past relations between Muslims and Jews have often been...

Richard Cavendish remembers the Union of South Africa's first election campaign in September 1910.

Sarah Gristwood on the complex issues raised by the restoration of a remarkable Tudor vision of victory over the Spanish Armada.

Helen Castor visits the History Today archive to find Maurice Keen's...

The Neanderthals failed to adapt to climate change and may have died out in as little as a thousand years. Are we making the same mistakes, asks Mike Williams....

Richard Cavendish describes how Adolf Eichmann was captured in Argentina on May 11th, 1960.

Ben Sandell provides a series of tips on how to gain the best grade.

Emma Christopher analyses the recent treatment of the sensitive issue of slavery and abolition, both by historians and popular culture at large.

Sexually explicit jigs were a major part of the attraction of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration stage, as Lucie Skeaping explains. 

The gulf between the religious ideals of US conservatives and those of the European Enlightenment is as wide as the Atlantic. Tim Stanley looks at the origins and...

The economic crisis in Greece has drawn attention to the question of where best to display treasures such as the Elgin Marbles. Jonathan Downs offers some...

Ian Garrett advises on how to succeed under the new AQA rules.

As the daily life of Berlin's Jews became even more difficult under the Nazi regime, rumour and hearsay grew about the fate of those 'evacuated' to the east. How...

Dan Stone looks at how historians’ understanding of the Holocaust has changed since the end of the Cold War with the opening of archives that reveal the full...

George I was born on May 28th, 1660. Richard Cavendish provides an overview of his life.

Richard Cavendish remembers the birth of the pianist who was also briefly prime minister of Poland.

A century after the execution of Dr Crippen for the murder of his wife, Fraser Joyce argues that, in cases hingeing on identification, histories of forensic...

The American Civil War transformed the nature of conflict. Its opening salvos harked back to Waterloo; its end anticipated the industrial warfare of the 20th...

Amanda Vickery’s new series on the 18th-century home is part of an enlightened new strategy from the BBC, writes Paul Lay.

Wellington’s victories over the forces of Napoleon were critical to Britain’s ascendancy to superpower status. Peter Snow wonders why such a thrilling period of...

Early 17th century England saw the emergence of pirates, much romanticised creatures whose lives were often nasty, brutish and short. Adrian Tinniswood examines...

Little remains of the great North African empire that was Rome's most formidable enemy, because, as Richard Miles explains, only its complete...

Richard Wilkinson is enthusiastic about a new biography.

Mike Marqusee revisits S.M. Toyne’s article, The Early History of Cricket, on the origins and growth of the game, first published in History Today in June...

Hywel Williams revisits an article by Peter Munz, first published in History Today in 1959, and asks who needed whose approval most, the great ruler...

Graham Goodlad assesses the political skills that helped Charles II to escape the unenviable fates of his father and brother.

Richard Cavendish marks an important anniversary for one of Europe's most fantastic pieces of medieval architecture.

The Royal Institute of International Affairs, better known as Chatham House, celebrates its 90th birthday this summer. Roger Morgan looks at the organisation’s...

The great Russian author drew inspiration from the countryside and explored the practical and spiritual impact of trees on people, as well as on the environment...

Frank Dikötter looks at how historians’ understanding of China has changed in recent years with the gradual opening of party archives that reveal the full horror...

During his brief life, the Polish master of the musical miniature became a living symbol of his troubled nation. Adam Zamoyski looks at the reception given to...

70 years ago, in May 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. But the great war leader’s rise to power was far from inevitable....

In October 1935 Mussolini’s Fascist Italian forces invaded Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) at a crucial moment in the run-up to the Second World War. Daniel Whittall...

As Coronation Street celebrates half a century in the nation’s living rooms, Andrew Roberts looks at why an intensely parochial television series that has...

Nigel Jones celebrates a great humanitarian who navigated the perilous paths between good and evil, a mission that was to cost him his life.

The fortunes of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II and the regard in which their successive regimes came to be held were mirrored in the fate of one of their...

In 1959 Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba after a masterly campaign of guerrilla warfare. Drawing on this success, Castro and his followers, including Che Guevara...

In the 15th century, Cyriacus of Ancona journeyed in search of the Mediterranean’s Classical past. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for the 18th-century Grand...

Mary Heimann restores Czechoslovakia to its pivotal role in the Munich Crisis.

Exiled in London in June 1940, with France on the brink of defeat, Charles de Gaulle broadcast a speech that was to create an enduring bond between him and his...

Richard Cavendish provides an overview of the life and career of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, who died on April 11th, 1985.

Rowena Hammal explains why the Korean War broke out in 1950.

Detective stories captured the imaginations of the British middle classes in the 20th century. William D. Rubinstein looks at the rise of home-grown writers such...

Juliet Gardiner explains why her new book examines a short period of the 20th century and how she attempts to achieve a panorama of experiential history that gives...

This month Nick Poyntz looks at how to access the wealth of digitised source material now available to historians.

The enormous growth in user-generated content made possible by such developments as the wiki, presents exciting opportunities as well as potential perils for...

This month Nick Poyntz examines the rapid rise of blogging among both professional historians and amateur enthusiasts.

Nick Poyntz looks at the ways in which the ubiquitous search engine is changing the nature of historical research.

To conclude his series on the opportunities offered to historians by new technology, Nick Poyntz looks at how recent developments may help to bridge the gap...

Nick Poyntz looks at the ways in which mobile phone 'apps' can bring historical insight to our everyday environment.

Digital technology is rapidly changing the nature and scope of historical enquiry for both academics and enthusiasts. Nick Poyntz introduces a new series that...

Mark Bryant admires a Russian artist whose lampoons of Napoleon inspired some notable British caricaturists.

Britain has had a long and sometimes problematic relationship with alcohol. James Nicholls looks back over five centuries to examine the many, often unsuccessful,...

The decision by Sussex University to drop research-led teaching and implement a post-1900 curriculum will produce scholars lacking in historical perspective, says...

The idea of a female monarch was met with hostility in medieval England; in the 12th century Matilda’s claim to the throne had led to a long and bitter civil war....

Has the British family undergone an unparalleled breakdown since the 1960s, as is often claimed? Pat Thane argues that there never was a golden age of domestic...

Though they originated in China, it was in the capitals of early modern Europe that fireworks flourished. They united art and science in awesome displays of...

Before the First World War, Irish Unionists and Nationalists were poised to fight each other over the imposition of Home Rule by the British. Then, remarkably,...

Lucy Worsley reveals the strange stories of the cast of characters on the King’s Grand Staircase at Kensington Palace, painted by William Kent for George I in the...

R. E. Foster sifts myth from reality in the life of the 'Lady with the Lamp', who died 100 years ago.

The historian’s desire for certainty is hard to square with the fragility of sources and their constant reworking by the profession. Casting a cold eye on the...

Shortly before his death, Hyman Frankel, the last surviving member of the team whose work led to the development of the atom bomb, talked to Maureen Paton about...

Few events in history have proved as momentous as Galileo's discovery of the moons of Jupiter. David Wootton explains why.

Richard Cavendish descrives how, following Garibaldi's capture of Palermo, the Neapolitan garrison under General Ferdinando Lanza capitulated on June 6th, 1860....

America has struggled to reform public healthcare for over 100 years and now has a byzantine, costly system controlled by powerful, money-hungry interest...

The author Graham Greene journeyed to West Africa in 1935, ostensibly to write a travel book. But, claims Tim Butcher, it was a cover for a spy mission on behalf...

Ian Friel argues that popular ideas of the nature of Elizabethan seapower are distorted by concentration on big names and major events. Elizabethan England’s...

Richard Cavendish remembers Henry Hudson's attempted discovery of the Northwest Passage.

Patricia Fara charts the rise in popularity of the history of science.

What can the historian learn from writing fiction? Lisa Hilton, whose first novel is set in south-west France, discovered revelations about the area as well as her...

Following an invitation to help advise the government on the school history curriculum, what can a high-profile ‘telly don’ like Niall Ferguson bring to the...

Graham Darby points to common errors and omissions that should be avoided.

Mark Juddery looks at the historical backdrop to the much-loved 1950s Hollywood musical, Singin’ in the Rain in which Hollywood tells its own story of the arrival...

Coalition governments became common in 18th-century Britain, but tended to fail at times of crisis. Jeremy Black draws some parallels with the present day.

Rowena Hammal examines the fears and insecurities, as well as the bombast and jingoism, in British thinking.

Stephen Gundle, joint curator of a current exhibition on anti-Fascist art and the decline of the cult of Mussolini, examines the political demise and commercial...

A cremation ghat built in Brighton for Indian soldiers who fought in the First World War has recently been inscribed with their names, writes Rosie Llewellyn-Jones...

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones recalls the Victorian economist who helped resolve the financial crisis in India after the Mutiny of 1857.

Richard Cavendish remembers the death of an ill-fated medieval Scottish king, on August 3rd 1460.

Vincent Barnett welcomes a new introductory text on the most important modern British economist.

Almost everything written about and by Kim Philby is wrong, claims Boris Volodarsky. The Soviet spy and his KGB masters sought to exaggerate his successes against...

Anna Whitelock reviews three books about women of the Tudor court.

Martin Greig reveals the intimate relationship between the powerful Earl of Lauderdale, Charles II's Secretary for Scotland in the 1660s, and a Scottish...

Kathryn Hadley joins a group of schoolteachers and police officers in an innovative project that seeks ways to better understand the Holocaust.

Medieval scholars were the first to make the connection between maths and science and anticipated the discovery of inertia long before Newton. So why have their...

Louise de Bettignies assisted the Allies in the Great War by establishing a vital information network in northern France. Patricia Stoughton recounts her...

Magnus Stenbock, the Swedish aristocrat and war hero, lived his life in pursuit of honour. Yet, as Andreas Marklund reveals, he died in disgrace, broken by the...

The murder of a 12-year-old boy in Norwich in 1144 inspired Thomas of Monmouth, a monk from the city's cathedral, to create an anti-semitic account of the incident...

Richard Hughes asks whether the ‘Diabolical Duchess’ was in reality another Tudor victim.

Once the classical world’s dominant port, by the early 19th century the city founded by Alexander the Great was seemingly in terminal decline. But the energy and...

Emelyne Godfrey reviews a work on how murder and punishment was treated by Victorian Britain.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, France was riven by political division as extremes of left and right vied for power. Annette Finley-Croswhite and...

When Napoleon surrendered himself to a British naval captain after his defeat at Waterloo, the victors were faced with a judicial headache. Norman MacKenzie asks:...

Michael Scott-Baumann explains why Nasser is such an important figure in the Middle East in the twentieth century.

Neil Gregor reviews a title by Jeffrey Herf.

Objects loaded with the history of the Troubles are scattered around Belfast, but sensitivity means the debate about how and where to exhibit them rumbles on, says...

Maria Luddy reviews a work on modern Irish sexual attitudes by Diarmuid Ferriter.

Opera has flourished in the United States. But how did this supposedly ‘elite’ art form become so deep-rooted in a nation devoted to popular culture and dedicated...

Football became a potent expression of Algeria’s struggle for independence, never more so than during the dramatic events that preceded the 1958 World Cup, as...

A mysterious child from northern Germany, portrayed by William Kent on the King’s Grand Staircase, became one of the sensations of the Georgian age, as Roger...

Court fashion, a love of birdsong and the pressures of being a king are some of the subjects discussed in letters between Philip II of Spain and his teenage...

At a time of widespread concern about the patriotism of 'economic migrants' and political refugees, Peter Barber tells the story of one 19th-century ...

‘Complex marriage’, ‘male continence’ and the selection of the perfect partner were all themes propounded by a 19th-century cult in New York State. Clive Foss...

When the England football team visited Germany in May 1938, diplomatic protocol resulted in the team giving a Nazi salute, writes Trevor Fisher.

Corinne Julius is impressed by the breadth of material on display at London’s newly reopened Jewish Museum.

Though Protestants sought to distance themselves from Roman Catholics on the subject, angels  played a key role in Protestant culture as a means by which to...

In early 1907 the peasants of Romania rose up against feudal laws, wealthy landowners and the agents who kept them living in penury and...

Joanna Bourke reviews a book by Ana Carden-Coyne.

What was the Great Reform Act of 1832, how did it come about and what, if anything, did it achieve? Stephen Farrell looks at the people and politics involved...

Paul Lay is moved by an exhibition of tokens left by the mothers of children abandoned during the mid-18th century.

David Hipshon outlines the career of the most controversial king ever to have occupied the English throne.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of December 30th, 1460.

The modern Olympic movement was inspired by the classical world. But, says Richard Bosworth, when the Italian capital hosted the Games in 1960, the organisers had...

At the height of the Roman Empire, hundreds of merchant ships left Egypt every year to voyage through the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean, exchanging the produce of...

Kate Williams reviews a work by Dominic Lieven.

Janet Voke meets Joachim Rønneberg, survivor of one of the most daring actions of the Second World War: the sabotage of a German heavy water plant deep in occupied...

Mark Rathbone puts the famous 1954 school segregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, into historical context.

Patricia Fara explores the scientific education of Mary Shelley and how a work of early science fiction inspired her best-known novel Frankenstein.

Janet Dickinson on a book by Kevin Sharpe.

Bernard Porter reviews the field of studies of British covert operations and espionage.

The killing of 69 black South Africans on March 21st, 1960 was a turning point: the world judged apartheid to be morally bankrupt and the political agitation that...

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of December 20th, 1860.

Viv Saunders reveals how sport and society are intertwined.

Janet Hartley reviews a couple of Early Modern-themed releases.

The intriguing death of an Indian holy man in 1985 suggested that he was none other than Subhas Chandra Bose, the revolutionary and nationalist who, it is...

Stuart Clayton ask whether the mass media have undermined the status of leading authority figures in Britain since 1945.

Kevin Sharpe revisits an article by C.V. Wedgwood, first published in History Today in 1960, that looks at the diplomatic mission made by the artist Peter...

David Priestland reviews Norman Stone's latest history of the Cold War.

Robert Pearce examines the factors that led to Prussia's victory in the German civil war of 1866.

The Battle of Britain began on August 8th, 1940. Richard Overy looks behind the myth of a vulnerable island defended by a band of fighter pilots to give due credit...

Seventy years after the Battle of Britain, Richard Overy looks behind the myth of a vulnerable island defended by a small band of fighter pilots to give...

The Teutonic Knights were defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg, on July 15th, 1410.

Peter Donaldson examines how the British people reacted to the various stages of the South African war of 1899-1902.

With the chance of renewed political will to fund the Navy, possibly to the detriment of the Army, Nick Hewitt wonders if British defence policy is reverting to...

Graham Goodlad examines the changing role of the occupant of Number Ten in an era of significant political change.

Graham Goodlad reviews the career of A.J. Balfour, an unsuccessful Prime Minister and party leader but an important and long-serving figure on the British...

Geoff Coyle revisits an article by Chris Wrigley, ...

Andrew Boxer explains why party political strife lacked real substance in the period after 1945.

Richard Cavendish remembers the execution of Dr Crippen one hundred years ago, in 1910.

Ramsay MacDonald presided over his last cabinet on June 5th, 1935. He resigned two days later, on June 7th, 1935.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of December 31st, 1960.

Richard Cavendish remembers the birth of a publishing institution, on July 30th 1935.

Richard Cavendish remembers the first performance of Porgy and Bess.

The first Pony Express riders set off on April 3rd, 1860. Richard Cavendish charts its history.

Richard Cavendish traces the evolution of today's 'mega-bucks' sports industry back to a small competition in Scotland in the mid-19th Century.

Gemma Betros examines the problems the Revolution posed for religion, and that religion posed for the Revolution.

Ian Garrett shows that well-informed counter-factual speculation can help us understand better the causes and consequences of what did happen.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was not only a celebration of Victorian Britain’s scientific and economic pre-eminence but also a hymn to the religion that...

The Royal Society was founded in 1660 to promote scientific research. Through a process of trial and error, this completely new kind of institution slowly...

Giles MacDonogh visits the History Today archive to examine Nancy Mitford’s...

The Bamburgh sword, a unique pattern-welded weapon found in Northumbria, has helped shed new light on a critical period of Anglo-Saxon. ...

Ruth Henig reassesses the importance of the League of Nations.

Richard Cavendish commemorates the traumatic but ultimately victorious march of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists.

James Hamilton looks at how volcanic activity in Iceland in 1783 and elsewhere elicited strange reactions, and stimulated the creative powers of artists and...

Anthony Pollard visits the History Today archive to examine...

In 1817, during a period of economic hardship following the war with France, a motley crew of stocking-makers, stonemasons, ironworkers and labourers from a...

Richard Cavendish remembers January 13th 1935.

John Etty shows the vital importance of aviation in the Stalinist Soviet Union.

In the mid-18th century – at the height of the power struggle between France and England and the political ferment of both nations – a French spy with a peculiar...

Devastating earthquakes have been chronicled on the island of Hispaniola for the past 500 years, writes Jean-François Mouhot.

Roger Crowley finds that modern European concerns about Turkey are anticipated in an article by...

Dan Plesch describes how President Roosevelt’s introduction of a global day of solidarity in June 1942 successfully promoted the ideals of the United Nations and...

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of the founding of Switzerland's first university, at Basel, on April 4th, 1460.

The English journalist Walter Bagehot was one of the few commentators to grapple with the constitutional issues behind the the American Civil...

Richard Cavendish remembers the event that signalled the beginning of the end of the Western Roman empire 

Wilkie Collins’ haunting mystery of false identity and female instability reflected one of the lunacy panics of the age. Sarah Wise looks at three events that...

Mark Rathbone looks at the Battle of the Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Garden and at what happened to those involved.

Richard Wilkinson elucidates the paradoxical career of one of the key figures of English Protestantism.

The philosophical writings of the author of War and Peace inspired followers from Moscow to Croydon and led to the creation of a Christian anarchist reform...

When Penguin Books was acquitted of obscenity for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a door was kicked open to the social revolution of the 1960s....

The rise of the legal profession in late medieval and early Tudor England was greeted with disdain by the wider population. Anthony Musson asks whether the...

Jonathan Clark offers a historian’s perspective on what the recent general election might mean for Britain’s future political make up.

Keith Stapylton provides a novel viewpoint on one of Britain’s traditional centres of historical excellence.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo was founded on June 30th, 1960. Within a few days, however, there were army mutinies and disturbances around the country....

Miri Rubin explores the medieval galleries at the V&A and the British Museum.

Lindsay Pollick reviews changing interpretations.

The 2009 Nobel Prize winner for literature is well placed to describe the trials of Eastern European minorities through the maelstrom of the 20th century, writes...

The American soldiers who fought their way through the islands of the Pacific during the Second World War encountered fierce Japanese...

Ben Sandell shows that grappling with the meaning of a key term can reveal much about the nature of conflict in 16th-century France.

Retha Warnicke investigates one of the key questions of Tudor England.

A project to restore one of the Polish city’s 20th-century monuments has turned into a cultural battleground, writes Roger Moorhouse.

During the Anglo-French conflicts that characterised the 14th century, the Oxford theologian John Wyclif challenged the  ‘un-Christian’ pursuit...

Richard Wilkinson enjoyed this recent biography of the prime minister who led Britain into the Second World War.

Graham Goodlad sees virtues in a new study of recent prime ministers.

Gidon Cohen commends a new biographical study of Karl Marx

Robert Pearce rates a new study central to the interwar years.