Empire

King Leopold II’s personal rule of the vast Congo Free State anticipated the horrors of the 20th century, argues Tim Stanley.

The ‘British Empire’ was the name given by imperialists in the late 19th century to Britain’s territorial possessions. It was meant to create an image of unity and strength. But such a view is illusory, argues Bernard Porter.

The future emperor was born on August 31st, AD 12.

Jos Damen tells the stories of two unusual men who lived a century apart in the Dutch colony at Elmina in West Africa; a poet who became a tax inspector and a former slave who argued that slavery did not contradict ideas of Christian freedom.

The Jews of Algeria had lived side by side with Muslims for centuries, but the struggle for Algerian independence presented them with stark choices, as Martin Evans explains.

During the Napoleonic Wars Britain occupied the strategically important island of Sicily. Most of its inhabitants, tired of long-distance Bourbon rule, welcomed the arrangement, but their monarch did not, as Graham Darby explains.

Japan flexed its muscles and launched a full-scale invasion of China following an incident on July 7th, 1937.

Christopher Hale reports on a long campaign to discover the truth about the killing of Malayan villagers by British troops in 1948.

Thirty years after the Falklands War the bitter debate over the South Atlantic islands remains clouded in historical ignorance, argues Klaus Dodds

Watch footage of the Delhi Durbar of 1911, in colour.