History Today

Richard Willis believes the government should pay attention to the history of teacher-training in its plans for school-based training schemes for graduates.

John Horne asks why the heroic efforts of the two Irish divisions, the 16th (Irish) and the 36th (Ulster), in the bloody events on the Western Front in 1916, have been viewed so differently both at the time and since.

For her latest book, historical biographer Sarah Gristwood has turned to the story of Elizabeth I and Leicester. Here she discusses some of the risks and pleasures of writing about such a well-known relationship, a process that she found unexpectedly fascinating.

The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III died on April  2nd, 1657.

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.