History Today

Joanna Richardson describes how the prosaic alliance arranged between the middle-aged Duke of Clarence and Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen became at length an extremely happy marriage.

The Emperor Napoleon III, writes Robert E. Zegger, was a leading patron of the French Society for animal welfare.

A fashionable parade and a scene of sporting contests, St James’s Park was first enclosed by Henry VIII. Marjorie Sykes describes the history of the park, including how James I kept a menagerie and aviary there, to which Charles II added pelicans.

In 1917, writes Jamie H. Cockfield, the American Ambassador’s valet reported on revolutionary events in Russia through letters to the family at home.

Geoffrey Parker asserts that the enduring English view of Philip “the Prudent” is clouded by libellous sectarianism and bad history.

Philip Guedalla became the Duke of Windsor’s most trusted supporter in England. Michael Bloch describes how this historian, wit and failed Liberal politician conceived a brilliant public defence of Edward, which ultimately came too late...

During the 1850s, writes W. Bruce Lincoln, an intrepid Russian traveller penetrated hitherto almost unknown territory, making large collections of botanical and geographical specimens, and exploring twenty-three difficult mountain passes.

William Gardener describes how silks, tobacco and tea from China were exchanged across the deserts northwest of Peking for furs, cloth and leather from Asiatic Russia.

The temples of Paestum have long been admired. Only recently, writes Neil Ritchie, have archaeologists unearthed a wealth of associated works of art.

Robert Woodall describes how Palmerston lost office in February 1858 during the Anglo-French controversy over Orsini’s bomb plot.