History Today

Roger Hudson looks at an episode that inspired one of the greatest films ever made.

Richard Weight reassesses Quentin Bell’s 1951 article on the morality of fashion, which anticipated the enormous social and stylistic changes of the 1960s.

The French chanteur was born on May 18th, 1913.

The great Confederate commander was fatally wounded at Chancellorsville on May 2nd, 1863.

The ruthless archbishop died on 15 May 913.

The indiscriminate use of ‘Nazi’ to describe anything to do with German institutions and policies during Hitler’s dictatorship creates a false historical understanding, says Richard Overy.

Bayreuth has much for which to thank Richard Wagner, but the determination of a Prussian princess to create something out of her dull and provincial 18th-century marriage helped make the city the place it is today, says Adrian Mourby.

Mihir Bose recalls a classic case highlighting the problems with Britain’s antiquated libel laws.

In the 1800s Rome became a microcosm for great power rivalries. E.L. Devlin describes a case of ambassadorial privilege that caused controversy between the papacy and the king of France.

The earliest European explorers to encounter ruins of the Maya civilisation could not believe it owed its creation to Indigenous Americans. How did they come to believe otherwise?