Feature

Russia’s California Colony

The Russians were among the first Europeans to sense California's potential. Had they not sold their settlement there in 1841, the world could have been a different place.

Lettow-Vorbeck: The Uncatchable Lizard?

The German First World War commander Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck has been described as the 20th century’s greatest guerrilla leader for his undefeated campaign in East Africa. Is the legend justified? 

Drake’s Progress

For all its faults C.E Hamshere’s account of Francis Drake’s 16th-century circumnavigation, published in History Today in 1967, applies a historical imagination lacking in more recent studies, argues Hugh Bicheno.

Christmas under the Puritans

Celebration of Christmas was curtailed by England’s Puritan republic but the methods and results varied considerably.

The Louisiana Purchase, 1803

At the dawn of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte liquidated the French empire in America, selling the vast Bourbon heritage along the banks of the Mississippi to the United States. Why?