Julius Caesar’s First Landing in Britain
Julius Caesar first landed in Britain on August 26th, 55 BC, but it was almost another hundred years before the Romans actually conquered Britain in AD 43.
History Today
Alchemy: Base Matter into Gold
Jonathan Hughes discovers the humanity of Thomas Charnock, a forgotten Elizabethan alchemist in search of the philosopher’s stone.
Another Little Patch of Red
John MacKenzie suggests that imperial rule and the possession of empire were an essential component of British identity, life and culture for over 200 years from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.
Heads or Tails?
A late-Roman coin unearthed in an Oxfordshire field and on show in the Ashmolean Museum leads Llewelyn Morgan to ponder the misleading messages on the faces of coins.
When Turks Civilized the World
Clive Foss looks at the way in which Kemal Atatürk rewrote history as part of his radical modernization of the Turkish nation.
The Hunting Year
Richard Almond deciphers the meaning of a set of illuminations illustrating an unusual Book of Hours made in Germany around the year 1500.
Publication of the Guinness Book of World Records
The Guinness Book of Records was first published on August 27th, 1955.
The Battle of Lechfeld
The Magyars of Hungary were defeated by an army led by Otto I, on August 10th, 955.
Museum of the Reformation
Paul Doolan visits a new museum in Geneva that presents the history of Reformed Christianity and Calvinism as a key and positive factor in European history.
Roman Britain: Ruling Britannia
Archaeologist Miles Russell describes recent discoveries which overturn accepted views about the Roman invasion of Britain.