History Matters

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A thief who had been dead for more than a century caused a moral panic in the theatres of Victorian London.

The First World War threw widows and their brothers-in-law together, but their marriages were considered incestuous.

A miniature Emancipation Proclamation helped to recruit Black soldiers during the Civil War.

Not every Egyptian was convinced of the certainty of an eternal afterlife.

Was the US president ‘dealing with the devil’ in his relationships with segregationist politicians or was his ‘the art of the possible’?

Even the retail sector became part of the second Five Year Plan imposed on the Soviet Union by Stalin.

The complexities of Haiti’s religious culture were misunderstood and exploited by imperial powers.

Solitude was treated with suspicion in the Middle Ages. For most people it has only been a possibility in recent times.

In England, Shrove Tuesday has not just symbolised feasting, fasting and family, but riot and rebellion, too.

On his death two centuries ago, Keats and his work looked sure to be forgotten. Why is he now so well loved?