Hawking Peerages
Andrew Cook looks at the mysterious career of a man notorious for selling seats in the House of Lords.
Feature
Belsen and the BBC: What Wireless Listeners Learned
Richard Dimbleby’s account of what he witnessed at Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 has become infamous in Britain. Less well known is the work of two other BBC employees who made radio programmes about Belsen shortly after the camp’s liberation.
The Bombing of the King David Hotel
The bombing of the King David Hotel – the British headquarters in Mandatory Palestine – killed 91. What role did terrorism play in the birth of the state of Israel?
The General Strike
Martin Pugh revisits one of the most bitter disputes in history and assesses its impact on industrial relations and the wider political landscape of the twentieth century.
How The American West Was Lost
The expansion of the United States in the mid-19th century had a catastrophic effect on the Native Americans of the Great Plains.
The My Lai Massacre and the War at Home
The US army’s mass murder of unarmed civilians at My Lai became a watershed in public perceptions of the Vietnam War.
Florence Nightingale as a Social Reformer
Lynn McDonald describes the lasting impact of Florence Nightingale on improving public health for the poor.
The Cult of Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor, the last truly Anglo-Saxon king of England, became an embodiment of pacific and idealistic medieval kingship under Henry III. Why?
Animal Farm and Soviet Satire
George Orwell’s ‘fairy story’ on the USSR was politically inconvenient in 1945. Opinions on Animal Farm were soon revised, but its targets – and its author – are easily misunderstood.
The Battle of St Albans, 1455
The Battle of St Albans is now seen to mark the start of the Wars of the Roses. Was it the violent conclusion of one political crisis, rather than the beginning of another?