History Today

In May 1941 Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy, landed in Scotland. But historians differ over the true nature of his mission.

Michael Sturma finds parallels in contemporary accounts of abductions by space aliens with European narratives of captivity by Indians and Aboriginals in early America and Australia.

The great opera premiered in Rome on January 14th, 1900.

Stephen Gundle settles in the stalls to re-view the epochal Fellini film that defined the hedonistic spirit of post-war Italy.

On January 31st, 1950, Truman announced that he had directed the Atomic Agency Commission 'to continue with its work on all forms of atomic energy weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super-bomb'.

The English social reformer was born on January 24th, 1800.

Durham primary teacher David Field describes how he is trying to set his children on a path that may make them the historians of the twenty-first century.

The Royal Observatory launches a new all-encompassing exhibition on the history of time.

Andrew Pettegree re-reads Geoffrey Elton’s classic text and considers how the subject has developed in nearly four decades since it was written.

C.R.J. Currie celebrates the Victoria County History - a monument to the past that is looking forward confidently to the future.