History Today

The world’s first global commodity spawned a network of traders, producers and consumers, whose interactions shaped the modern world, as Giorgio Riello explains.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain acquired the tiny island of Heligoland in the North Sea. Ashley Cooper and Stephen Cooper describe how, as the European rivalries shifted in the 19th century, it came to be used as a bargaining chip with Germany.

In 1861 a young clergyman’s son arrived in British Guiana to oversee a sugar plantation. Over the next 30 years Henry Bullock’s letters home caught the texture of life in a remote backwater of Empire – though they don’t tell the whole story, as Gaiutra Bahadur explains.

Before he was tamed by respectable Victorians, the archetypal, bibulous Briton, beloved of cartoonists and satirists, embodied all the virtues and vices of the late 18th century and the scandal-rocked Regency.

The court martial and acquittal of a senior British Intelligence officer accused of presiding over abuses of German prisoners during the Second World War highlights failings in intelligence policy and accountability, says Simona Tobia.

Supreme stylist, polymath, linguist and scourge of specialisation, Hugh Trevor-Roper, whose centenary falls this month, continues to divide opinions. Blair Worden considers his life and legacy.

The most desirable tourist destination of belle époque Europe, Venice became a major naval base during the First World War. Richard Bosworth looks at how La serenissima dealt with the years of peril during which it became a target of enemy bombers.

The great poet passed away aged 73 on January 28th, 1939.

The MP was ejected on January 19th, 1764.

The granddaughter of William the Conqueror was married on January 7th, 1114.