History Today

Andrew Cook describes how a chance encounter with Houdini had a profound impact on the methods of Britain’s leading First World War spymaster.

John Lucas rejoices at the return of Christopher Wren’s Temple Bar to London after more than 120 years of ‘exile’ in Hertfordshire.

Historical novelist Linda Proud explains why she thinks fiction can be as truthful as ‘fact’.

David Harrison considers one of the greatest but most underrated achievements of the medieval world: the hundreds of bridges that defined the British communication system up to the 19th century.

The queen of Castile died on November 24th, 1504.

On November 1st, 1954, an insurrection broke out in Algeria.

Glenn Richardson looks at almost nine hundred years of enmity, jealousy and mutual fascination, a hundred years after the Entente Cordiale.

June Purvis looks back at thirty years of women’s history in Britain.

Andrew Syk investigates whether one British army division truly comprised ‘lions led by donkeys’, or whether its officers learned the lessons of their early mistakes.

When Teddy Roosevelt was re-elected, on November 8th, 1904, his words to his wife Edith were: 'My dear, I am no longer a political accident'.