Feature

Madagascar was among the prizes of Europe’s ruthless African land grab. When a US diplomat made plans for his own colonial enterprise, he found that the French had other ideas.

As senility came to be recognised as a distinct diagnosis, methods of protecting patients – from themselves and from others – had to change. 

For the German military command, the citizens of East Prussia were not a concern; they were a weapon to be deployed in the Battle of Königsberg. 

Having prospered for more than 400 years, a medieval colony on Greenland vanished without a trace, but its memory lived on.

As promoters, propagandists, patrons and warriors, women were everywhere during the Crusades. 

The 19th-century Korean peninsula was a chessboard on which the fates of great powers were decided. China, Japan and Russia learned this to their cost in the 'Other Great Game’.

Christopher Hatton rose to great power as a favourite of Elizabeth I. Born in obscurity, why has he returned to it?

As the 19th century wore on, social reformers campaigned for charitable modernisation. Their target: England’s most useless foundations.

For citizens of Ancient Rome, the recurrence of brutal civil war was par for the course. For writers, the Years of the Four, Five and Six Emperors were an opportunity.

The legend of Ravachol, the terrorist ‘mastermind’ of the fin de siècle.