The Castlereagh-Canning Duel
The two politicians fought on September 21st, 1809.
History Today
The First Flying Trapeze
The circus act was first performed on 12 November 1859.
Pu Yi, last Emperor of China, is pardoned
The last of the Manchu emperors received a formal pardon on December 4th, 1959.
Birth of Ludwig Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto
The creator of the world's most widely spoken constructed language was born on December 15th, 1859.
Samuel Pepys begins his diary
The diarist began his work on January 1st 1660.
The Saar plebiscite
Richard Cavendish remembers January 13th 1935.
British Prime Ministers: Lord Palmerston
A.J.P. Taylor on one of those surprising outsiders with a touch of mischief – in this case a man whose political career spanned nearly sixty years.
Crisis at Central High
John A. Kirk recalls the dramatic events at Little Rock, Arkansas, when a stand-off over the granting of black students access to integrated education brought the civil rights agenda to international attention.
Guns, Gales & God: Elizabeth I’s ‘Merchant Navy’
Ian Friel argues that popular ideas of the nature of Elizabethan seapower are distorted by concentration on big names and major events. Elizabethan England’s emergence on to the world stage owed much more to merchant ships and common seamen than we might think.
Broadsides against Boney
Mark Bryant admires a Russian artist whose lampoons of Napoleon inspired some notable British caricaturists.