History Today

Stephen Clissold describes how many Christian prisoners in sixteenth and seventeenth century North Africa embraced the Islamic faith, willingly serving their new masters.

C. Northcote Parkinson describes the life and times of Jeffery Hudson of Oakham, Rutlandshire, a remarkable member of Charles I's court who nonetheless measured under three feet tall.

Elka Schrijver documents the productions and popularity of these 18th-century engravings and prints.

William Amelia describes how Baldassare Castiglione's popular book on courtly manners invoked the elegance and charm of Renaissance life, and went on to influence Europe for centuries.

L.W. Cowie takes the reader on a visit to London's Carlton House; an architectural gem with many royal connections and which was converted into a palace for the future George IV.

Christopher Lloyd offers a portrait of the most notorious pirate of his day, John Ward; who helped introduce Barbary corsairs to the use of the well-armed, square-rigged ships of northern Europe with which they terrorised the Mediterranean.

George Woodcock describes how, in March 1778, Cook was the first European to set foot on the Pacific coast of Canada.

After the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth, writes M.L. Clarke, Rome became a centre of her enemies, and every English traveller was apt to be regarded with suspicion.

Plants have been hunted since the days of the Pharaohs, writes William Seymour; but, in more recent times, two resolute Scottish botanists led particularly adventurous and courageous lives.

In 1764, writes Stuart Andrews, during his successful Grand Tour, James Boswell, then aged twenty-four, visited two great European thinkers, who were, he wrote, far more interesting to him ‘than most statues or pictures’.