History Today

In May 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. But the great war leader’s rise to power was far from inevitable. Taylor Downing explains what a difference a day made.

The ministry of education in the Czech Republic recently issued guidelines on how to teach children about the country’s totalitarian past. Not everyone is pleased, reports Lubomír Sedlák.

The late Labour leader, who died in March aged 96, was the last great radical voice of Parliament and stands comparison with the celebrated 18th-century polemicist, writes Brian Brivati.

Patricia Fara explores the scientific education of Mary Shelley and how a work of early science fiction inspired her best-known novel Frankenstein.

The Chartists’ campaign for political inclusion and social justice ended in failure. But, David Nash argues, their ideas still have much to offer Britain’s discredited Parliamentary system.

Early 17th century England saw the emergence of pirates, much romanticised creatures whose lives were often nasty, brutish and short. Adrian Tinniswood examines one such career.

In May 1610 Henry IV of France was assassinated by a religious fanatic apparently acting alone. Though popular, Henry had nevertheless aroused animosity on his way to kingship, not least because of his Protestant beliefs, writes Robert J. Knecht.

Ben Wilson visits the History Today archive to examine Diana Spearman’s analysis of the British constitution in the 18th century, an age characterised by liberty and individualism.

In April, in the cruellest of ironies, many of Poland’s political elite perished when their plane crashed on the way to a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of an earlier generation of Polish leaders. John P. Fox reports.

President Roosevelt’s introduction of United Nations Day and his Four Freedoms boosted morale in the fight against fascism and set the stage for a post-war UN.