History Today

Penelope Corfield shows that ridiculing the learned professions is not a new thing.

Richard Cavendish visits Capesthorne Hall in Cheshire.

Adrian Mourby reflects on the legacy of Nova Scotia's French Acadians.

Richard Wilkinson weighs up history's verdict on Chamberlain's Secretary of State for War, and asks whether it was Establishment anti-Semitism or professional failings in the light of Dunkirk that led to the minister's downfall in 1940.

Clive Foss tells how the airship phenomenon caught the imagination of the Soviet Union – becoming a key propaganda tool to Stalin, both at home and abroad.

David Bates examines a Tudor Christmas Fare at Hampton Court Palace.

The man who conquered Mexico died on December 2nd, 1547.

What led middle-class students to join the urban guerrilla movement against the military regime in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s? Alzira Alves de Abreu reports on the evidence from interviews with those who survived.

St Paul’s Cathedral was opened on 2 December 1697.

Marika Sherwood trawls contemporary reports of the anti-Catholic protests that rocked London in June 1780 to reveal the black men and women who took part, exploring their motives and punishments for doing so.