Political

Magnus Stenbock, the Swedish aristocrat and war hero, lived his life in pursuit of honour. Yet, as Andreas Marklund reveals, he died in disgrace, broken by the schemes of a cunning spy. 

The idea of a female monarch was met with hostility in medieval England; in the 12th century Matilda’s claim to the throne had led to a long and bitter civil war. But the death of Edward VI in 1553 offered new opportunities for queenship, as Helen Castor explains.

Stephen Gundle examines the political demise and commercial rebirth of the Italian dictator.

The traumatic but ultimately victorious march of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists ended on 22 October 1935.

The League of Nations has been much derided, but it laid the foundations for an international court and established bodies that the United Nations maintains today.

The English journalist Walter Bagehot was one of the few commentators to grapple with the constitutional issues behind the the American Civil War. Frank Prochaska discusses his ideas.

At the beginning of the ninth century, Charlemagne—already the master of Western Europe—was crowned by a calculating Pope as the supreme sovereign of the Christian world. Peter Munz asks what the real significance of his new title really was?

Richard Cavendish remembers the Union of South Africa's first election campaign in September 1910.

Nigel Jones celebrates a great humanitarian who navigated the perilous paths between good and evil, a mission that was to cost him his life.