Feature

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.

In 1381 England witnessed a medieval ‘summer of blood’ as the lower orders flexed their muscle in what became known as the Peasants’ Revolt.

Thomas Paine inspired and witnessed the revolutions that gave birth to the United States and destroyed the French monarchy. A genuinely global figure, he anticipated modern ideas on human rights, atheism and rationalism. 

Bartitsu – rather than Baritsu – was a hybrid martial art that flourished in fin de siècle London. As an amateur boxer, Arthur Conan Doyle was fascinated.

Friedrich Engels financed the research behind his friend Karl Marx’s epic critique of the free market, Das Kapital. His role is now being recognised.

Henry Tudor invoked providence to gain his throne in 1485, but it was skilful use of heraldic and religious imagery, as well as promotion of the cult of Henry VI that ensured he retained it.

In 1709 Russia emerged as a major power after a clash of armies in Ukraine. Peter the Great’s victory, Derek Wilson argues, had repercussions that last to this day.

The expulsion in 1609 of more than 300,000 Spanish Moriscos – Muslim converts to Christianity – was a brutal attempt to create a homogenous state.