History Today

Michael Staunton considers how Thomas Becket, a controversial figure even in his own lifetime and ever since, was described by his earliest biographers.

Richard Cavendish explains how plans for a coup against King Hussein ibn Talal of Jordan eventually melted away on April 13th, 1957.

On the city’s 800th anniversary in 2007, and the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, John Belchem examines Liverpool’s cosmopolitan profile and cultural pretensions.

In 44 BC, the greatest of dictators was slain. The question of how Julius Caesar meant to use his supreme power has ever since been disputed.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of March 4th, 1857

During the Seven Years War, Admiral Byng was charged with 'failing to do his utmost'. He was executed on board the Monarch on March 14th, 1757.

Dan Snow, who has explored historic battles on television with his father Peter, tells Peter Furtado about the rich collection of stories surrounding his family over the last century.

John F. Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the Moon in the 1960s is remembered as a utopian vision. In reality, it was a purely political project that he soon came to regret.

How did Washington Post cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman – with a little help from Theodore Roosevelt – spark the creation of the world’s favourite soft toy?

British traders in enslaved Africans found ways around the Slave Trade Act of 1807, while commerce flourished through the import of slave-grown cotton.