History Today

Gyanesh Kudaisya describes the final years of India’s founding prime minister, a period marked by major challenges at home as well as abroad in the aftermath of the 1962 war with China.  

A brilliant intelligence officer at MI5, Guy Liddell’s reputation was damaged forever by one great failure: his deception by the Cambridge spies. Ben Macintyre describes the slow dawning of treachery described in the final volume of Liddell’s remarkable diaries.

Caroline Chapman delves into a wide-ranging and prolific correspondence, spanning half of the 18th century, between the British court diplomat to Florence, Horace Mann, and the historian and patron of the arts, Horace Walpole.

The caped crusader first appeared on May 1st, 1939.

Beethoven's only opera was performed for the first time on May 23rd, 1814.

The French theologian died on May 27th, 1564.

One of the bloodiest and most decisive battles in Irish history took place a thousand years ago this month.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, writes Patricia McCollom, the French made a resolute attempt to seize the rich Canadian fur-lands.

For several generations, writes Arnold Whitridge, Americans thought it inevitable that the Canadian provinces would join the United States.

Robert Cecil describes how the preacher’s influence in the years before the American Revolution was as great as that of the press, and in New England probably greater.