Today’s featured articles
Founded in Oakland, California more than half a century ago, the Black Panther Party’s revolutionary image and legacy remain as politically and racially divisive as ever.
Saint Augustine was educated for a Roman world, but it was his time in North Africa that shaped his identity, his faith, and Christianity itself.
The mass breakout from Sobibór death camp in October 1943 has been largely forgotten. What happened?
Most recent
The Radical John Wilkes
Parliament’s champion of the people or scandalous, self-serving politician? Georgian radical John Wilkes kept a foot in both camps.
‘Killing the Dead’ by John Blair review
In Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World, John Blair proves that you can’t keep a good corpse down.
The Publication of ‘1066 and All That’
On 16 October 1930 Britain’s sense of its own historical greatness was skewered with the release of 1066 and All That.
AD-X2: When US Politicians Took on Science
The dismissal of a government scientist over the unproven battery additive AD-X2 galvanised the American scientific community in the 1950s.
The Master and Mikhail Bulgakov
In the chaos unleashed by the October Revolution, Mikhail Bulgakov found a past become fragmented and confused, and history the domain of madmen and devils.
‘The Diver of Paestum’ by Tonio Hölscher review
The Diver of Paestum: Youth, Eros and the Sea in Ancient Greece by Tonio Hölscher – and translated by Robert Savage – searches beneath the surface for the meaning behind a beguiling fresco.
The Invention of Microbiology
On 9 October 1676 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek – the ‘Father of Microbiology’ – presented his findings to the Royal Society.
Noah’s Ark and the Slave Trade
After the Flood, Noah’s sons were repurposed to support a new worldview justifying racial hierarchy and slavery.
Current issue
- Image
In the October issue:
Zoroastrians in the Great Game, Chinese astronomy, slavery after abolition, the North African roots of Saint Augustine, the Chamberlen family forceps, and more.
Plus: reviews, opinion, crossword and much more!
You can buy this issue from our website, from newsstands across the UK, or read it as a digital edition via the History Today App.