History Today

C. Chenevix Trench describes how, assigned to the Sudan in the time of the ‘Mahdi’, Colonel Stewart led an enterprising officer’s life in Asia and Africa.

Robert Hermstorff describes how Goethe moved to Weimar in 1775 and during the rest of his long life made the small Saxon town the centre of German letters and learning.

Arnita Ament Jones describes the collaboration of Frances Wright and Robert Dale Owen in the American movement for reform and the conduct of Utopian communities.

Much of our evidence for the past comes from paintings and sculpture. But how reliable is this source? Kenneth Clark examines the history of forgeries in art and discusses the motives of the forgers and the reasons for which what now seem to us obvious forgeries were accepted in their time as authentic. He concludes with a discussion of the ethical problems raised by forgeries.

Since before Roman times, writes Marjorie Sykes, pearl-fishing has been practised in North Wales, Cumberland and Perth.

In the 1880s, writes Ronald Rees, an English community brought with it to Canada hunting, horse-racing, cricket, tennis and rugby.

B.J. Haimes describes how a British airship, the R34, raised the possibility of transatlantic travel by dirigible.

D.L.B. Hartley describes the background to a postwar transatlantic aviation competition, famously won by Alcock and Brown’s Vickers Vimy aeroplane.