History Today

Dorothy Margaret Stuart describes how the earliest English printed book was issued from William Caxton’s press at Westminster in 1477, under the patronage of the ruling House of York.

The traditional version of the scramble for empire in Africa during the late nineteenth century is here challenged and critically re-appraised by Eric Stokes.

One of the longest and happiest, though least fortunate, of British royal marriages was solemnized in 1761. It had been preceded by a lengthy search which, writes Romney Sedgwick, the King himself inspired and conducted, through all the eligible princesses of Europe.

The battle over the Middlesex Election of 1769, writes George Rude, raised the constitutional question of the voters’ right to return a member of their own choice to Parliament.

Essentially a plain man, neither a visionary nor a revolutionary, William Cobbett, rustic tribune of the people, was first and foremost a gifted writer 'who happened to write about politics'.

What can explain the Scottish King's rash challenge to his uncle of England, Henry VIII, in 1542? In that year, writes Albert Makinson, a Scots army was destroyed on the borders of Cumberland, and James's throne passed to his daughter, Mary, before whom lay a tragic destiny.

Amid the disasters of the First Afghan War, the courage and buoyancy of Lady Sale stands out — James Lunt describes her as the shining epitome of “a soldier's wife."

Gladstone and his Victorian Liberals still offer a great insight into the UK's divisions.

Englishmen, during the reign of George III, loved every form of festivity and show. In 1775, a courageous attempt was made to hold a magnificent London regatta. But, as F.H.W. Sheppard writes, there were the usual delays and misunderstandings; ladies fell into the Thames-side mud; and, naturally, the weather changed.