History Today

At what point did it begin to matter what you wore? Ulinka Rublack looks at why the Renaissance was a turning point in people’s attitudes to clothes and their appearance.

Between 1954 and 1958 Ann Moyal was a research assistant to the press baron Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook. Here she offers a personal recollection of the political mover and shaker as he embarked on a new phase of his career as a historian of his times.

Geoff Coyle revisits an article by Chris Wrigley, first published in History Today in 1984, examining the mining dispute of 1926,which developed into Britain’s first and, to date, only general strike.

What can the historian learn from writing fiction? Lisa Hilton, whose first novel is set in south-west France, discovered revelations about the area as well as her approach to interpreting the past.

A key player in the War of the Roses died on December 30th, 1460.

The farthing ceased to be legal tender on December 31st, 1960.

One of the founder members of the Confederacy seceded from the United States on 20 December 1860.

Nigel Saul salutes his colleague’s achievement of 100 authored books on a wide range of historical subject matter.

Paul Lay is moved by an exhibition of tokens left by the mothers of children abandoned during the mid-18th century.

Wellington’s victories over the forces of Napoleon were critical to Britain’s ascendancy to superpower status. Peter Snow wonders why such a thrilling period of history is too often neglected.