History Today

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant looks at the work of the man who invented the art of political cartooning, and asks what effect his drawings had on one of their targets.

The Labour party's first parliamentary leader was born on August 15th, 1856.

The Prussians invaded Saxony on August 29th, 1756, marking the beginning of the Seven Years War of 1756-63.

Cultural historian Lucy Hughes-Hallett considers how perceptions of Cleopatra have moved in the last decade and a half.

Adlai Stevenson ran for a second time against Eisenhower in 1956, but Eisenhower won the election even more convincingly than in 1952.

Simon Lloyd assess the achievements and legacy of France's idealised royal crusader.

Wilfrid Prest unravels myths perpetrated by historians about the great 18th-century lawyer.

Peter Furtado on one of the most traumatic places in British military history.

Brigid Wells introduces extracts from the memoirs of her mother, Susan Richmond, who as a young English actress postponed a promising career on the stage to offer her services to the victims of the Great War. Richmond spent over a year at the Suffragette-founded Scottish Women’s Hospital in the Abbey of Royaumont, northern France, nursing mostly French soldiers. Her vivid descriptions of daily life during the devastating months of the Somme offensive offer both a heart-rending and uplifting account of the bravery of male patients and female staff alike.

Bernard Porter argues that history and patriotism should be kept firmly apart.