History | Maiyro

Assunta @Assunta - about 14 hours ago

The Magic is Gone | History Today

Most of the intended readers of Michael Hunter’s provocative and enjoyably readable new study will instantly recognise the allusion in its title. In 1971 – and it is to be hoped that someone is already thinking about ways to mark the almost-imminent 50th anniversary of it...continued

5 minutes read

Izaiah @Izaiah - 3 days ago

Why is the Public so Obsessed with the Nazis?

‘The level of fascination leaves many historians scratching their heads’ Roger Moorhouse, Author of First to Fight: the Polish War 1939 (Bodley Head, 2019) The popular obsession with Hitler and the Nazis is at once wholly understandable and rather baffling. On one level...continued

8 minutes read

Geovany @Geovany - 3 days ago

The Great Rabbit Hoax | History Today

On a Friday two weeks before Christmas 1726 news reached Exeter of a curious theatrical performance which had taken place in London the previous Saturday night, on 10 December. An Exeter newspaper reported that, at the end of the main play at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields thea...continued

15 minutes read

Kraig @Kraig - 4 days ago

Why is the Public So Obsessed with the Nazis?

‘The level of fascination leaves many historians scratching their heads’ Roger Moorhouse, Author of First to Fight: the Polish War 1939 (Bodley Head, 2019) The popular obsession with Hitler and the Nazis is at once wholly understandable and rather baffling. On one level...continued

8 minutes read

Adelia @Adelia - 5 days ago

The Cato Street Conspiracy Unravels

Arthur Thistlewood was a known firebrand at the time he formed his conspiracy to assassinate the entire Cabinet, including Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, at a dinner. Inspired by radical thinker Thomas Spence and angered by the Peterloo Massacre and the subsequent passing...continued

2 minutes read

Raoul @Raoul - 5 days ago

The State of the Nation

‘Societies, all societies, are constituted in a certain way, and this way is their constitution’, said the US public intellectual Philip Bobbitt in 2003. The connection between the life of a society and its constitution has only become more pronounced in the years since. ...continued

1 minute read

Abbie @Abbie - 8 days ago

Sexual Eeling | History Today

In March 1876, the young Sigmund Freud arrived in Trieste, looking for the testicles of an eel. For centuries past, these troublesome organs had proved elusive. Despite the most intensive – not to say intimate – research, no one had managed to track them down. Recently, h...continued

10 minutes read

Devin @Devin - 9 days ago

Sin and Siege: The End of the Crusades

When the churchman Jacques de Vitry stepped ashore at the city of Acre in November 1216, he was appalled. Vitry had come to Palestine to take up his position as the city’s bishop with a mission to rejuvenate the spiritual fervour of its people in advance of a new crusade,...continued

2 minutes read

Izaiah @Izaiah - 10 days ago

Shampoo Empire | History Today

Shampooing is part of everyday hygiene. But where did it come from? In the 19th century, the art of shampooing travelled from British India to the Empire’s heart, Britain. It did so thanks, in part, to one Indian immigrant, Sake Dean Mahomed (also spelled as Mahomet or Mo...continued

2 minutes read

Nelson @Nelson - 11 days ago

Britain’s Gardening Revolution | History Today

On his 30th birthday, 29 May 1660, Charles II returned to London from his exile abroad. He had much to do. He had to re-establish the monarchy, appoint his ministers, call a new parliament and cement relationships with the Anglican Church, which was still suspicious of hi...continued

2 minutes read

Elaina @Elaina - 12 days ago

Ralegh in his Time | History Today

Allan Gallay’s comprehensively researched but above all profound biography of Walter Ralegh makes it unlikely another will be published anytime soon, if ever. It is ambitious in scope and if it perhaps over-reaches in attributing to Ralegh the guiding spirit of British im...continued

4 minutes read

Alan @Alan - 12 days ago

A Cure Worse than Disease

Quarantine as a means of preventing the spread of disease is an ancient phenomenon. Early forms of the practice are described in the Old Testament book of Leviticus and in the writings of Hippocrates. The word itself is Venetian, derived from the quaranta giorni (40 days)...continued

5 minutes read

Jessika @Jessika - 15 days ago

On the Spot: Dan Hicks

Why are you a historian?In fact, I’m a contemporary archaeologist with an anthropological sense of the past. What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?That anti-racism is more urgent than class war. Which history book has had the greatest influence on you? A...continued

2 minutes read

Jimmy @Jimmy - 15 days ago

The History Today Podcast | History Today

In this new series, leading historians share insights and stories in conversation with Paul Lay, editor of History Today.These discussions will be interspersed with long reads: articles specially selected from the magazine for an eclectic, fascinating and informative mix....continued

1 minute read

Kari @Kari - 16 days ago

Politics and Poetry | History Today

Today, we largely think of Persian as the national language of Iran. But this region is merely the core remnant of a once enormous swathe of the Eurasian landmass in which Persian was the lingua franca for nearly 1,000 years. Stretching from the Bosphorus to the Brahmaput...continued

7 minutes read

Monserrat @Monserrat - 17 days ago

Here Be Monsters | History Today

Anglo-Saxon literature, in both Latin and Old English, chiefly preserves the beliefs and learning of the cultural elite. We have comparatively little knowledge of how the illiterate majority who worked the land interpreted the world around them. However, an often-overlook...continued

5 minutes read

Alexandro @Alexandro - 17 days ago

The Stylus is Mightier than the Sword

‘As many cuneiform signs as exist, I have written on tablets’, reads the colophon impressed on a clay tablet found in Nineveh. ‘I deposited [those tablets] in my palace’, it continues. A colophon usually appears at the end of a written work to immortalise information abou...continued

4 minutes read

Oren @Oren - 18 days ago

Resetting the Clock | History Today

In the weeks and months that followed Notre-Dame’s fire on 15 April 2019, people have tried to grapple with the loss. Not just of the physical building, of course, but also the loss of the history. Notre-Dame was – and is – a physical timeline of the city and the fire bur...continued

6 minutes read

Maida @Maida - 19 days ago

Spain in the USA | History Today

In 1565, half a century before the Pilgrim Fathers, the Spanish began the first European settlement in the present-day United States. Yet, despite Hispanic roots that go back nearly half a millennium, descendants of more recent immigrants have ignored this basic truth and...continued

3 minutes read

Alexzander @Alexzander - 22 days ago

Lies, Damned Lies and History

Post-truth politics, and the way it is reshaping the public sphere, poses an existential threat to the study of the past. On 27 January 2020 we mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The existence of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps and, s...continued

4 minutes read

Kraig @Kraig - 24 days ago

Is Social Media Good for History?

‘Social media favours the quirky, the visual, the gruesome’ Catherine Fletcher, Professor of History, Manchester Metropolitan University and author of The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance (Bodley Head, 2020) At its best, social medi...continued

8 minutes read

Eleanora @Eleanora - 24 days ago

February Quiz

[unable to retrieve full-text content]February QuizHistory Today Which president appears on the $5,000 bill? When was the Reichstag Fire?

1 minute read

Alexzander @Alexzander - 25 days ago

The Scholar’s Tale | History Today

Even in the world of academic publishing, where time moves at its own glacial pace, 29 years is a long time to work on a project which never saw completion. In 1922, J.R.R. Tolkien was commissioned by Oxford University Press as a junior collaborator on a student edition o...continued

4 minutes read

Ryleigh @Ryleigh - 25 days ago

A History of Monkeys | History Today

In 1562, an etching by Pieter van der Heyden turned the Dutch art world upside down. Modelled after a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, it depicted a well-known folk story. In the middle of the scene, a peddler lies sleeping beneath a tree. As he is slumbering, howeve...continued

10 minutes read

Marie @Marie - 26 days ago

Poland’s Resistance | History Today

The purpose of this very valuable addition to the literature on the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 is straightforward. Roger Moorhouse insists that too little attention has been paid in the West to the heroic resistance of the Poles to German aggressio...continued

4 minutes read