‘Garotting’, or the strangulation of a victim in the course of a robbery, haunted the British public in the 1850s. Emelyne Godfrey describes the measures taken to prevent it and the range of gruesome self-defence devices that were often of greater danger to the wearer than to the assailant.
Mark Bryant looks at the artist behind one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.
At the end of the 19th century, with religious belief under increasing attack, the British antiquarian Arthur Evans sought to ‘re-enchant’ the world with his utopian interpretation of Crete’s ancient Minoan civilisation, as Cathy Gere explains.
Hugh Purcell looks at how, 90 years ago, the British Empire rejected the principle of racial equality on which the Commonwealth is now based.
A right-wing Catholic who crushed all his rivals, Engelbert Dollfuss fought hard to maintain his young republic’s independence. A.D. Harvey looks at the life of the tiny patriot of peasant stock who stood up to Hitler.
In the 13th century a remarkable trading block was formed in northern Europe. Stephen Halliday explains how the Hanseatic League prospered for 300 years before the rise of the nation state led to its dissolution.
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.
Until 1729, London Bridge was the capital’s only crossing over the Thames and a microcosm of the city it served, lined with houses and shops on either side. Leo Hollis looks at the history of an icon.
In 1969 men set foot on the Moon for the first time. The Apollo space programme that put them there was the product of an age of optimism and daring very different from our own, argues André Balogh.
Richard Cavendish recounts the birth of a great warship, on July 23rd, 1759.
