History Today

Tom Bowers previews the History Channel’s new series on the Crusades and finds out what is different from previous attempts to put the holy wars on screen.

Alex Butterworth looks at the parallels between the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans recently, and the devastation suffered by Pompeii in the first century AD.

An idea promoted by Pope Urban II at the end of the 11th century continues to resonate in modern politics. Jonathan Phillips traces the 800-year history of ‘Crusade’ and its power as a concept that shows no sign of diminishing.

Far from being the bogeymen of history, Geoffrey Robertson QC says that the English regicides were men of principle who established our modern freedoms.

The exhibition that opened in Paris, on October 15th, 1905, 'shocked many who saw, and many more who did not.'

The Oxford Martyrs were killed on 16 October 1555.

The Mughal emperor died on 25 October 1605.

Geoffrey Best considers Winston Churchill’s growing alarm about the possibility of nuclear war, and his efforts to ensure that its horrors never happened.

How France became caught up in an unexpectedly complicated imperial adventure in 1830, eventually adding almost all of what is now Algeria to its empire.

Kenneth Baker looks at the foibles and achievements of one of Britain’s most controversial monarchs through the eyes of his caricaturists.