History Today

On the difficulty of keeping time with the people of the past.

The soldiers of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, fought the men of James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, in Edinburgh on 30 April 1520.

Did the British Empire have a culture?

It’s bad news for local newspapers, with reports that they have reached their lowest numbers since the 18th century. How will historians study the provincial past when they can’t read all about it?

A search for Boudica finds its author, but not the Queen of the Iceni. 

Talk of a Balkan federation became a hot topic at the end of the Ottoman Empire, eventually dying a death at the dawn of the Cold War. Was Europe’s ‘Little Orient’ destined to fall apart?  

The Archpriest Avvakum Petrov was burned in Pustozersk on 14 April 1682.

Is knowledge a useful remedy for ignorance?

Almost three quarters of the golden age of Hollywood has been lost. Preservation only began when film came to be seen as art.