History Matters

Parliament’s champion of the people or scandalous, self-serving politician? Georgian radical John Wilkes kept a foot in both camps.

The dismissal of a government scientist over the unproven battery additive AD-X2 galvanised the American scientific community in the 1950s.

After the Flood, Noah’s sons were repurposed to support a new worldview justifying racial hierarchy and slavery.

The lifelong rivalry of two early modern Neapolitan printers was a battle of books, power, and, ultimately, fire.

In 13th-century England excommunication was akin to spiritual leprosy. How did it work?

In the 1970s and 1980s Wimpy faced off with McDonald’s in a battle over what it meant to eat British.

European intelligence agencies assisted Mossad’s Wrath of God assassination campaign, while their governments condemned them.

For the Victorians and Edwardians, the late British summer was a time of sun, sand – and sea serpents.

A routine Native American cattle round-up at the US-Mexico border in 1898 became an international incident.

The wine trade in medieval Tunis was lucrative, but it caused a moral quandary for the ruling Hafsids.