History Today

The Nok people of Nigeria were smelters of iron but also agriculturalists. The culture they founded may have a deep effect on the ancient history of Africa.

Derek W. Lawrence portrays 1769 as a fateful year for the world: Napoleon and Wellington were both born in it; and James Watt took out a patent for his momentous steam-engine.

George Woodcock outlines how, by about 515 B.C., architects, sculptors, goldsmiths and silversmiths were assembled from all quarters of the Persian Empire to build a new capital, Parsa, which the Greeks called Persepolis.

Thanks to his gift of foresight, aided by his natural intelligence and a flair for improvization, Themistocles carried through a long-term programme, aimed at making his native city a great imperial power. By Stephen Usher.

On August 26th, 1071, Byzantine army was defeated by the Seljuk Turks, and Anatolia was forever lost to Christendom.

W. Brownlie Hendry describes how a sixteenth-century Scottish laird, with, in Gibbon's words, ‘a head to contrive and a hand to execute,’ worked out the powerful aid to mathematical calculation known as logarithms.

David J. Jeremy writes that from the moment of Beau Nash’s quitting the scene of his power and pride, corruptions and relaxations crept, insensibly, into his formal and elaborate system of public punctilio.

George Woodcock describes how, towards the end of the seventh century BC, the Persians first began to establish themselves as a rising power in the Middle East.

S.G.F. Brandon describes how the earliest representatives of mankind were concerned with three fundamental problems— birth, death and the supply of food—which they attempted to solve by magico-religious means.

J.B. James describes how travelling was an occupation that, although they believed it had a good effect on the character, most sixteenth-century Englishmen found singularly unenjoyable.