History Today

A Plot to Assassinate Pitt

During the early months of 1794, writes Vera Watson, in the throes of the fierce struggle against revolutionary France, the British Government received dramatic information which it treated as a top-level secret—two assassins were on their way to London, entrusted with the task of eliminating both Pitt and his royal master.

The Climacteric of Empire

George Woodcock describes how the Imperial Conference of 1930, and accompanying events overseas, began the change of substantial empire into a shadowy Commonwealth.

Writing History

The experience and approach of a historian: Roger Lockyer on writing historical biography.

The Spa Fields Riots, 1816

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, writes Arthur Calder-Marshall, London became a centre of reforming agitation against poverty and political mismanagement.

The Smith of Smiths

Wit, diner-out, country clergyman and pugnacious liberal journalist, Sydney Smith, said Lord Melbourne, had ‘done more for the Whigs than all the clergy put together.’ Joanna Richardson revisits his reputation.

The Philosophical Testament of Johannes Haller

As it has fallen to the lot of our generation to relive the experiences of a Jeremiah and Josephus, writes Martin Braun, it is not surprising that a literature of historical self-analysis has sprung up in post-war Europe—most notably in Germany.