History Today

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of December 12th, 1905.

Historians have often stressed the modernity of America’s Civil War. Yet Gervase Phillips argues that the dependence on often weary, sickly horses on both sides in the war had a significant impact on the development, and final outcome of, the struggle.

Two hundred years after William Pitt took on Napoleon, Europe is in crisis again. Keith Robbins warns Tony Blair that there are no easy fixes to the issues of democracy that have thrown the ‘European project’ off course.

At court, the twelve days of Christmas were a time for politics, intrigue and manoeuvre as well as for merry-making. Leanda de Lisle explores the mixed feelings induced in a courtier embroiled in the great affairs of the day, by two very different Christmases, just twelve months apart.

Judy Greenway recalls a colourful trial involving an Italian anarchist and a policeman in the year of the Aliens Act.

Andy Lynes experiences a colourful and tasty vocation lesson in the history of the Regency period.

David Gimson describes a school trip with a difference: from Oxford to Japan to see how another country deals with its own contested and painful past, and to develop contacts for the future.

Peter Furtado introduces the man closer to Winston Churchill than any other.

Historical novelist Katie Grant delves into her family history for inspiration.

What did it mean to be an earl, and where did the title come from? Marc Morris looks at the relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet kings and their earls.