History Today

Joseph Chamberlain entered public life as a self-made man and a Republican Radical: he left it as the leader and idol of Protectionist Toryism. Such are the transformations of the English political scene, writes Robert Rhodes James.

In certain parts of Spanish America today O’Higgins is a name still remembered and honoured to an extent that would surprise the great majority of Irishmen who have never heard of the once famous Viceroy of Peru or of his son, the founder of Chilean independence.

From 1650 onwards, writes Elka Schrijver, a Postmaster in Rotterdam organized Dutch seafaring mail.

When Napoleon III withdrew his troops from Rome, writes John Quinlan, the unification of Italy was at last accomplished.

In the 1550s, writes Judith Hook, one of the last of the independent Italian republics was overwhelmed by the forces of the Holy Roman Empire.

Edna Nixon describes how Mary Wollstonecraft became a passionate believer in the education of her own sex, having herself suffered intensely as a woman.

On the genial banks of the Thames, writes Barbara Kerr, an enlightened family of early industrialists poured forth an ocean of sweets and sours.

Outside the London of Shakespeare's time, writes Anthony Dent, coaches were few and most travellers were horse-borne.

First built in the 1630s, writes Leonard W. Cowie, Leicester House became the London home of three eighteenth-century Princes of Wales.

The canal in Languedoc, between the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean, was one of the remarkable achievements of Louis XIV’s reign, writes Roger Pilkington.