History Today

Richard Cavendish visits the Sussex home of the Gage family.

Bonaparte has sometimes been acclaimed as the greatest military commander in history. In our final article in this series, David Gates reviews his contribution to the art and science of warfare.

On June 15th, 1098, the army of the First Crusade discovered the Holy Lance – the very spear that had pierced Christ’s side on the cross - in the city of Antioch.

Milton Goldin explores Himmler’s ambitions to establish the SS as a ‘state within a state’, and highlights schemes the Nazis devised to finance the organisation through industrial enterprise and plundered Jewish assets.

In the aftermath of 1798 the British had to deal with thousands of political prisoners. Michael Durey traces the mixture of decisiveness, pragmatism and clemency with which they were treated.

Ian Scott traces the hundred-year history of heroin, from cough medicine to underworld narcotic. 

Giacomo Casanova died on June 4th, 1798. His autobiography guaranteed him an enduring reputation as a womaniser; but there was more to him than that.

As Britain prepares to receive the Emperor Akihito on his first state visit, we look at two aspects of the relationship between Japan’s past and its present. In this first article, John Breen examines the Japanese paradox of a constitutional monarch.

John Breuilly looks at the attempt to create a German nation-state and how it foundered on the questions of national minorities, border disputes, shared sovereignty in a federal state and the intersection of power politics with idealism.