History Today

John Nowell introduces and translates a contemporary portrait of the eighteenth-century actor at work, originally penned by G.C. Lichtenberg.

Clifton W. Potter profiles the leader of the Parliamentary Jacobites in the early eighteenth century.

C.R. Boxer describes how the Spanish and Portuguese empires were troubled by smugglers and interlopers on the high seas.

Norman Lloyd Williams analyses the observations of Etienne Perlin during his visit in 1553.

The origins of soccer can be found among the people, not the privileged who sought to define it in the 19th century.

The year 1913 marked a resurgence for the Russian empire as the Romanov dynasty celebrated its 300th anniversary and the economy boomed. Had it not been for the First World War the country’s fortunes might have taken a very different turn, says Charles Emmerson.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century, writes E.R. Chamberlin, a young French King took advantage of the Italian ‘genius for dissension’.

Ian Grey profiles Boris Godunov; Chief Minister after the death of Ivan the Terrible, and then himself Tsar, Boris served Russia during a most troubled period.

Leonard W. Cowie visits this splendid structure, which Inigo Jones began to raise for King James I in 1619, and which is still one of London’s most perfectly proportioned buildings.

William Gardener describes how, since the first century A.D. rhubarb was known to the Romans as a panacea for internal ailments, and imported from China.