History Today

The leading Victorian radical and Liberal politician John Bright was born on November 16th 1811.

Clovis I died in Paris on November 27th 511, aged 46.

The first performance of The Tempest on record was at court on All Hallows’ Day, on 1 November 1611.

Michael Bentley looks at the father of British historiography who was an eloquent and controversial opponent of teleology.

To mark the 400th anniversary of his birth, UNESCO has declared Evliya Çelebi a ‘man of the year’. His Seyahatname, or Book of Travels, is one of the world’s great works of literature. Caroline Finkel celebrates a figure little known in the West.

Tim Grady on postwar Germany’s attempts to remember the contribution made by its Jewish combatants in the First World War.

A political exile, Richard Wagner found safety in Zurich, where he also discovered the love and philosophy that inspired his greatest works, as Paul Doolan explains.

In recent years British models have reappeared on the catwalk wearing real fur, though it is unlikely to ever regain the mass appeal it once had. Carol Dyhouse looks back to a time when female glamour was defined by a mink coat.

Colin Jones and Emily Richardson reveal a little-known collection of obscene and irreverent 18th-century drawings targetting Madame de Pompadour, the favourite mistress of Louis XV of France.