History Today

Few events in history have proved as momentous as Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter. But would sharing his findings mean sharing his telescope?

The fortunes of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II and the regard in which their successive regimes came to be held were mirrored in the fate of one of their mightiest naval vessels, as Patrick Little explains.

At a time of widespread concern about the patriotism of 'economic migrants' and political refugees, Peter Barber tells the story of one 19th-century immigrant whose affection for Britain grew as political crisis severed his attachment to home.

Martin Greig reveals the intimate relationship between the powerful Earl of Lauderdale, Charles II's Secretary for Scotland in the 1660s, and a Scottish spinster who became the earl's 'Presbyterian conscience' during a tumultuous period for kirk and crown.

As the daily life of Berlin's Jews became even more difficult under the Nazi regime, rumour and hearsay grew about the fate of those 'evacuated' to the east. How much did ordinary Berliners know about the fate of their neighbours?

The importance to historians and anthropologists of Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic, ten years after its first publication. 

In early 1907 the peasants of Romania rose up against feudal laws, wealthy landowners and the agents who kept them living in penury and servitude. Markus Bauer discusses the legacy of an 'unbelievable bloodbath'.

The modern Olympic movement was inspired by the classical world. But, says Richard Bosworth, when the Italian capital hosted the Games in 1960, the organisers had to offer an image of the city that also took account of its Christian, Renaissance and Fascist pasts.

A solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine seems as far away as ever. But, says Martin Gilbert, past relations between Muslims and Jews have often been harmonious and can be so again.

Mike Marqusee revisits S.M. Toyne’s article, The Early History of Cricket, on the origins and growth of the game, first published in History Today in June 1955.