History Today

Making New Religions: The Mighty 'I AM'

'Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.' The colourful activities of a religious movement in the 1930s were to lead to landmark Supreme Court decisions about the relations of religion and the state.

Spying for the Kaiser

Popular obsession with German espionage in the early 1900s proved to be well-founded, as Nicholas Hiley shows in an examination of the prewar activites of a group of agents controlled by the 'Kaiser's Spymaster'.

If Parma Had Landed

Felix Barker discusses the little-known civil defence preparations to meet a Spanish invasion and looks at what might have happened.

The Lurch Into War

In May of 1588, Spain's great Armada set sail, bent on the invasion and conquest of Elizabethan England. Simon Adams re-examines the strategic considerations that underpinned the actions of both England and Spain before and after the Armada.

Gauging the Future

Tony Aldous on mid-19th century plans for a railway station in the centre of London.