Feature

During the Franco-Prussian War a British wine merchant was imprisoned in Cologne, accused of being a spy. The public clamoured for the government to secure his release, but wartime diplomacy was not so straightforward. 

The First Crusade unleashed shockwaves felt across all of Christendom. New chapters to a story started in 1099 are still being written.

Three generations of the cursed House of Dudley stained the executioner’s block in 16th-century England. Were its members murderous villains working to overthrow the monarchy, or shrewd political agents struggling to survive? 

In the 1930s several prominent Black intellectuals visited Shanghai, bringing politics, culture and anti-colonial fervour with them. 

The death and mutilation of the chief of the Xhosa in 1835 at the hands of the British was a ‘barbarous’ deed, concealed by the perpetrators in a web of lies. 

Fifth in line to the throne, Karl I was not expected to become the Habsburg emperor. By the time he did, in 1916, it was already too late for the crumbling empire.

When the abolitionist author visited Britain and Ireland in 1845 he was celebrated in poems and songs wherever he went. Arriving as an enslaved man, he left with his freedom.

The CIA has veered far from the purpose for which it was founded. Intended to gather and collate intelligence, it became instead a secretive organisation accountable to no one, which had disastrous consequences for Latin America. 

In 1659 the restoration of the exiled Charles II seemed impossible. It might not have occurred at all but for the forgotten intervention of a blacksmith’s daughter. 

The spread of Rastafari carried pan-African ideals from rural Jamaica to the world. From its origins in 1930s Kingston, it has espoused a striking message: Africa yes, England no.