Today’s featured articles
It’s an ‘open secret’ that the CIA and MI6 helped topple the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh. Why can’t the British government come clean about its interference in Iran?
During the Crimean War soldiers died in appalling conditions, but the treatment of enemy prisoners was surprisingly humane.
During the Second World War, Britain and the Soviet Union worked together in oil-rich Iran. Cooperation was to degenerate into suspicion at the dawn of the Cold War.
Most recent
Lise Meitner’s Nuclear Vision
During the Second World War, Berlin scientists discovered nuclear fission. Only one of them got the credit. Why was Lise Meitner written out of history?
End of the Pastry War
Mexico’s disgraced saviour General Antonio López de Santa Anna completed his comeback on 9 March 1839 as the Pastry War came to a close.
‘Red Dawn Over China’ by Frank Dikötter review
Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity by Frank Dikötter is a balanced account of the violent years between Kuomintang and communist rule.
How Important was the Battle of Hastings?
The Norman Conquest is credited with reshaping England, but was 1066 really all that?
‘Strikingly Similar’ by Roger Kreuz review
Strikingly Similar: Plagiarism and Appropriation from Chaucer to Chatbots by Roger Kreuz finds that copyright isn’t always a matter of black and white.
Peace Talks: Letter from America 80 Years On
Eighty years ago the BBC tried to remedy postwar Anglo-American friction with Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America.
‘The Cancelled Prime Minister’ by Walter Reid review
The Cancelled Prime Minister: The Extraordinary Rise and Tragic Fall of Ramsay MacDonald by Walter Reid finds the romance behind Labour’s great betrayer.
Defending the Tichborne Dole
The introduction of bread rationing by the postwar Labour government threatened the centuries-old tradition of the Tichborne Dole and, with it, the national understanding of what England was.
Current issue
- Image
In the March 2026 issue:
Prisoners in the Crimean War, Penang and independent Malaya, Erasmus’ English rival, defending the Tichborne Dole, 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.