History Today

The US army’s mass murder of unarmed civilians at My Lai became a watershed in public perceptions of the Vietnam War.

Jacob Middleton investigates the eccentric set of prejudices against shaving that led Victorian men to adorn their chins with a lush growth of facial hair.

Henry VIII may be our most famous monarch, a man who still bestrides English history as mightily as he dominated his kingdom nearly 500 years ago – but how well do we really understand him? 

Long before the appearance of green, brown and black bins on our doorsteps we recycled our household rubbish. Tim Cooper investigates the history of waste recovery.

The Theosophists Helena Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Margaret Cousins and others went to India at the end of the 19th century to search for God and universal brotherhood in the Hindu tradition. They also ended up supporting women’s rights against contemporary Hindu practices. Mark Bevir explores the tensions between their fascination with traditional culture and the reforming zeal of their proto-feminism.

Alex Sanmark tells the strange tale of the ill-fated marriage of Philip Augustus of France and his Danish princess at the end of the twelfth century.

Gillian Mawrey, editor of Historic Gardens Review, introduces the study of historic gardens as a hotbed of historical research, sheer pleasure and campaigning for conservation.

Alison Barnes has unearthed a transcription of the Privy Purse Accounts of Charles II that fills the gap for 1666, for which year the originals are now lost. They offer a fascinating glimpse of how the King liked to spend his time and his money.

Ben Power takes a tour of the London Library, an invaluable resource for historians and History Today, and describes plans for a sensitive expansion beginning this year.

David Culbert visits an exhibition at the Allied (Alliierten) Museum in the former headquarters of the US occupation forces in Berlin.