History Today

By the eighteenth century, writes Adam Zamoyski, four fifths of the world's Jews lived in Poland.

Through the marriage of a baronet and a scrivener’s heiress, writes Francis Sheppard, the Grosvenors eventually became the wealthiest family in Europe.

T.F. Chambers describes the fate of the first large steamship to be built of iron.

Early in the 1650s, writes Alan Haynes, this intrepid noblewoman took the ‘extraordinary’ step of publishing her own poems.

In 1567, permission for the holding of ‘a very rich Lottery General’ in England was granted by an increasingly cash-strapped Elizabeth I.

Tracked down to a ‘hut in the cavern of a rock’, writes J.J.N. McGurk, Desmond met his death at the hands of fellow Irishmen.

In 1579 James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, cousin to the 14th Earl of Desmond, took up arms against the English foe.

Many Moors remained under Christian rule in Spain, writes Stephen Clissold, but most of them were finally expelled under Philip III.

N.M. Sutherland describes how some two hundred English exiles found refuge in Protestant Geneva during the reign of Mary Tudor.

Edward III created the Duchy of Cornwall as an estate for the Black Prince; A.L. Rowse describes how it has been held ever since by the sovereign’s heir or lain dormant in the Crown.