History Today

The Barbed Wit of Weimar

Mark Bryant contines his exploration of significant cartoons and caricature with a look at a German magazine that published some of the bravest satirical critiques of Hitler, bitterly attacking Nazism until 1933, and still published to the last years of the war.

The White Russians of Shanghai

Merchant Ivory’s latest film White Countess tells the story of a high-born Russian woman reduced to poverty and prostitution to support her family – refugees of the Bolshevik Revolution – in a Shanghai slum. Fraser Newham investigates the experience of the real White Russians of Shanghai and discovers this scenario to be close to the truth for many exiled Russian women.

The Wow Factor

John Julius Norwich has an infectious enthusiasm in his writing that makes his books hugely popular. Here he explains why certain subjects have allured him, such as the exotic world of medieval Sicily and his adored Venice, while others leave him cold.

The Foundation of Sinn Fein

The organisation which would become the political arm of the Irish Republican Army was founded as a nationalist pressure group on November 28th, 1905.

‘The First Cartoon’

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant examines significant cartoons and caricatures from the history of the genre, in Britain and overseas and from the 18th century until 1945, and tells the fascinating  stories behind them.

Youth Rebels of the Third Reich

Tom Neuhaus looks at the subversive young Germans known as Swing Youth who refused to have their hobbies and tastes dictated to them by the Nazis.

The King Who Never Was

Andrew Cook takes a look at the Duke of Clarence, grandson of Queen Victoria, who is most often remembered as a wastrel who died young, and is sometimes mentioned as a suspect for Jack the Ripper murders.

Tyrants on Trial

As preparations are made for Saddam Hussein’s trial in Iraq, Clive Foss examines the precedents for bringing tyrants to justice and finds the process fraught with political complexity.