Cultural

What explains the Iranian state’s remarkable soft power in the West? The answer lies in Iran’s rich – and often romanticised – history.

British agents of empire saw their actions in India through the texts of their classical educations. They looked for Alexander, cast themselves as Aeneas and hoped to emulate Augustus.

In 1874 a choir of African American singers concluded a successful tour of Britain, singing songs that confronted American racism. Victorian audiences had never heard music like it.

On 28 August 1839, the earl of Eglinton hosted a ‘medieval’ tournament to mark Queen Victoria’s coronation. It was a damp squib.

The puppet theatres of Kazakhstan combined Soviet ideals with Kazakh traditions to educate the masses.

Entrepreneur Hugh Donald McIntosh struck white gold when London’s Black and White Bar opened on 1 August 1935.

Interrail gave young Europeans the freedom of the continent in the 1970s. Five decades on, people are still taking the train.

The Literary and Philosophical Society was once ubiquitous, allowing minds to meet and views to collide. Their disappearance has left more questions than answers.

For nine days Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess was the greatest box office phenomenon of the English Renaissance. Then a warrant was issued for his arrest.