Feature

Why does England have a special fondness for the three kings – or magi – of the Christmas story?

From 1931 it looked as though Britain’s first Labour prime minister would be its last. Is it time to reappraise the political reputation of Ramsay MacDonald?

India cast off the monarchy in 1950, but the Nehru-Gandhi family have become republican royalty. How did one dynasty take centre stage in the world’s largest democracy?

After he fell from power, Bismarck became a mythical hero figure of the right. The legend of the ‘Iron Chancellor’ was wielded by militarists, conservatives, and eventually, Adolf Hitler.

British traders in enslaved Africans found ways around the Slave Trade Act of 1807, while commerce flourished through the import of slave-grown cotton.

How did Washington Post cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman – with a little help from Theodore Roosevelt – spark the creation of the world’s favourite soft toy?

John F. Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the Moon in the 1960s is remembered as a utopian vision. In reality, it was a purely political project that he soon came to regret.

John Plowright examines the career of one of the key ministers in Attlee’s postwar governments.

The Berlin Wall was a tangible symbol of the suppression of human rights under communism. Was it more convenient to the West than their rhetoric suggested?

Why did Parliament offer the infamous regicide the crown of England, Scotland, and Ireland? And to what extent was Oliver Cromwell tempted to become king?