History Today

Constance Head describes how, in the tenth century, a scholarly young man and an ambitious admiral presided over the large Byzantine empire.

D.G. Chandler introduces Marlborough; a man, ‘whose mind was not confined to battle ... at once a captain and a diplomatist,’ as Napoleon a century later said of the British commander.

Trevor Fawcett describes how courses of public lectures provided some of the knowledge of science omitted from a gentleman’s education.

William Seymour describes how there was royal displeasure when a near cousin of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs married in secret.

Steven R. Smith describes the Apprentices’ part in the political struggles that followed the King’s defeat in the Civil War.

J.J. Saunders describes the Papal envoy to the Mongol conquerors who travelled through Russia to eastern Asia in 1245-7.

J.W. Blake describes the development of a maritime empire of trade, built by traders.

Eynon Smart describes how, when the third Dutch War began in 1672, Charles II and his Ministers were faced with financial needs; a reprieve for the Exchequer was their answer, but it disturbed the country’s banking system.

Ivan Morris describes how the idea of heroic failure has always exerted a strong hold on the Japanese imagination.

J.H.M. Salmon describes how Voltaire was haunted by the massacre of Huguenots in August 1572, and used his version of the complicated event in his lifelong campaign against prejudice and superstition.