Europe

Simon Sebag Montefiore imagines dinner with Catherine the Great, Prince Potemkin and Stalin.

Derek Wilson looks at the great religious reformer and asks why his life and work have seemed so ­significant to so many diverse people for almost 500 years.

Richard Cavendish recalls May 17th, 1257.

Tobias Grey introduces a film about the North African soldiers in the Second World War which has taken France by storm, and is opening in Britain on March 30th.

The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III died on April  2nd, 1657.

Kevin Shillington looks at the impact on Africa of the slave trade, and its abolition 200 years ago this month.

Philip Morgan explains why Italians have tended to gloss over the period 1940-43, when Mussolini fought against the Allies, preferring to remember the years of German occupation 1943-45.

Christopher J. Walker asks whether the two religions that frequently appear locked in an inevitable clash of civilizations in fact share more than has often been thought.

Robert Carr dissects a book frequently referred to but seldom read.

Simon Lemieux explain why witch-hunting ended when so many Europeans supported it.