Feature

Andrew Boxer traces the assimilation policies, indigenous rights, and the changing relationship between the US government and Native Americans.

Since at least the 18th century, the traditional English summer sport has inspired cartoonists, as Mark Bryant demonstrates.

In 1759 a British army under General James Wolfe won a momentous battle on the Plains of Abraham. A neglected ingredient in Wolfe’s dramatic victory was the professionalism of the army he had helped to create.

The tactics adopted by the Gallic leader Vercingetorix to resist Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul played into Roman hands.

Samuel Johnson was admired for his insight and humanity, qualities forged in the darker and less well-analysed episodes of his life.

Sex, scandals and celebrity were all part of a blame and shame culture that existed in the 18th century, one that often fed off the misfortune of women at the hands of men. Prostitutes, courtesans and ladies with injured reputations took up the pen in retaliation.

At the end of the 19th century, British antiquarian Arthur Evans sought to ‘re-enchant’ the world with his utopian interpretation of Crete’s ancient Minoan civilisation.

In 1706 a little-known mathematics teacher named William Jones first used a symbol to represent the platonic concept of pi, an ideal that in numerical terms can be approached, but never reached.

In 1926 Umberto Nobile became a hero of Mussolini’s Italy when he piloted Roald Amundsen’s Norge over the North Pole. Two years later his reputation went down with his airship.