History Today

Film in Context: Gallipoli

Matthew Stewart discusses Peter Weir's 1981 cinematic tour de force, and what it tells us about the ANZAC myth.

The Fall of Kano

The taking of Kano by the West African Frontier Force, on February 3rd 1903, signalled the end of the Muslim fundamentalist Fulani empire in northern Nigeria.

Britain and the Medusa Shipwreck

The French tragedy at sea, immortalised in Géricault’s masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa, was put to use in the service of British patriotism.

The Strange Case of Thomas of Eldersfield

How many miraculous recoveries from castration and blinding were there in thirteenth-century England? Paul Hyams investigates the conjunction of the cure with the growth of a saint’s cult.

Black Pudding

Jeremy Black, one of the most prolific historians of our time, explains the energy behind his perpetual-motion pen.