History Today

Colonel Nasser became president of Egypt in 1956. In this article from our 1981 archive, Robert Stephens considers how he has been both acclaimed as a nationalist liberator and condemned as a warmonger. What was his influence on the history of the twentieth century?

For much of the British Civil Wars the colony of Barbados remained neutral, allowing both Parliamentarian and Royalist exiles to run their plantations and trade side by side. But with the collapse of the king’s cause in the late 1640s matters took a violent turn, as Matthew Parker relates.

What became of the baby daughter of Henry VIII's widow Katherine Parr and her disgraced fourth husband Thomas Seymour after their deaths? Linda Porter unravels a Tudor mystery.

It is a deeply unfashionable thing to ask, says Tim Stanley, but might a nation's history be affected by the character of its people?

Richard Cavendish explains how Europe's earliest modern-style banknotes were introduced by the Bank of Stockholm in the 17th century.

Richard Cavendish provides an overview of the life of the French monarch who was nicknamed 'the Universal Spider'.

Hiram Bingham re-discovered the 'lost' city of the Incas on 24 July 1911.

The Italian Renaissance republics are regarded by many as pioneers of good governance. Yet republican rule often resulted in chaos and it was left to strong despotic rulers to restore order, as Alexander Lee demonstrates.

Following Garibaldi's capture of Palermo, the Neapolitan garrison under General Ferdinando Lanza capitulated on June 6th, 1860.