Soviet Spy Swap
Gerald Brooke’s time in a Soviet prison was a pivotal moment in Cold War espionage.
History Today
In Defiance of her Golden Age
Lucie Delarue-Mardrus was at the heart of daring interwar Paris, where she used her influence to defend those left behind by ‘progress’.
Sacred Songs for the Dead
Women had few powers in Ancient Greece – except in death.
On the Spot: Daniel Beer
The historian of Russia on Dostoevsky, Foucault and sympathy for the Bolsheviks.
German East Africa after the First World War
The peoples of Germany's African colonies recovered from the conflict against all the odds.
Death of Nikola Tesla
Child genius, engineer, inventor and physicist, Nikola Tesla died on 7 January 1943.
The Air of Freedom
Before the British Empire and the Atlantic slave trade, Africans lived freely in Tudor England.
All’s Fair in Blood and War
The pain of war had at least one positive side-effect: medical advances in haematology.
The Last Death of Catholic England
The grand funeral of Anne of Cleves, the neglected fourth queen of Henry VIII, took place during the reign of Mary Tudor, when English Catholicism was resurgent.
The Battle for Oil in the First World War
At the beginning of the 20th century the Great Powers competed for the right to extract the vast oil reserves around the Iraqi city of Mosul. The motivation – and prize – was energy security.