History
Anything to do with History
Felicita
@Felicita -
about 18 hours ago
The Rules of Drinking | History Today
In England and parts of Germany, extreme drinking at universities often looks much the same as in the US. But in countries where wine is more popular than beer, such as Italy, France, Spain and Greece, bingeing and drinking games are rarer and generally frowned on. Yet i...continued
5 minutes read
Muriel
@Muriel -
3 days ago
Pandemics: Now and Then | History Today
The Greek roots of endemic, epidemic and pandemic give them a patina of scientific precision, which is misleading. The uses and connotations of the terms have changed radically over time and even today they lack crisp definition. In ancient Greek, pandemic meant ‘relating...continued
9 minutes read
Kari
@Kari -
4 days ago
The Flood | History Today
Noah was in his 600th year when, in its second month, ‘the windows of heaven were opened and rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights’. According to the Old Testament Book of Genesis, God, reflecting on man’s wickedness, ‘regretted ever having created him. He resolved to destr...continued
2 minutes read
Garnet
@Garnet -
4 days ago
The Liberator’s Saviour is ‘Buried’
A small group of armed men approached the presidential palace in Bogotá on the night of 25 September 1828. Inside, Simón Bolívar lay in bed asleep beside his mistress, Manuela Sáenz. El Liberator had led large parts of South America to freedom from imperial Spain, but his...continued
2 minutes read
Devin
@Devin -
5 days ago
Earthly Delights | History Today
During lockdown, many people, at least those fortunate enough to have access to some kind of outside space, found solace in gardening. Germans refer to gardening as the ‘English art’ and it is telling that the nation’s garden centres were among the first institutions to r...continued
2 minutes read
Rose
@Rose -
5 days ago
The Cost of Cleanliness | History Today
In the midst of a global pandemic, with heightened new considerations of sanitation and hygiene, there has perhaps never been such an advantageous time to publish a work called The Clean Body. Timing aside, what Peter Ward manages to deftly show throughout this book is no...continued
4 minutes read
Zackery
@Zackery -
8 days ago
Worlds Little and Large | History Today
The events of the past few months have changed all our lives in ways we could not have imagined at the start of the year. Back in January, historians were playfully predicting what our version of the ‘Twenties’ might look like: would it be a repeat of the Roaring 1920s, o...continued
4 minutes read
Jeffrey
@Jeffrey -
10 days ago
Who is History’s Worst Political Adviser?
‘Many bristled at Nikephoros’ tactless behaviour’ Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford History, as we know, does not repeat itself. It is simply a coincidence that in the Byzantine Empire in the second half of the 11th century an advis...continued
8 minutes read
Roger
@Roger -
11 days ago
The Colonels’ Failed PR Coup
In the modern era, relations between states have usually been conducted through diplomatic envoys. Since public opinion has become more important to policy makers, however, governments have increasingly resorted to outsourcing. Regimes with an image problem tend to hire p...continued
1 minute read
Manley
@Manley -
12 days ago
The King After Carta | History Today
The reign of Henry III is difficult for the historian to summarise. Lasting 56 years, it is the fourth longest in English history, after those of Victoria, George III and Elizabeth II. In the early and middle years there was a long period of peace and relative harmony, fo...continued
6 minutes read
Colin
@Colin -
12 days ago
The Field of Cloth of Gold: A Duel in Jewels
When the two monarchs parted in 1520 they agreed to meet again. But the Field of Cloth of Gold was followed by renewed enmity and it was 12 years before their second meeting took place, in October 1532, at Calais and Boulogne. The meeting largely occurred at the behest o...continued
2 minutes read
Immanuel
@Immanuel -
15 days ago
Breathing Easily | History Today
The ancient workplace was extremely hazardous, its conditions causing health problems from callouses and scars to permanent deformities or other, less immediately visible, issues, such as breathing problems. Despite the absence of the modern understanding of health and sa...continued
5 minutes read
Jarod
@Jarod -
16 days ago
The Field of Cloth of Gold
Shortly after 5pm on the afternoon of Thursday 7 June 1520, Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France met for the first time. Surrounded by an entourage of knights, gentlemen and troops, they greeted each other on horseback in a shallow vale between the town of Guînes...continued
1 minute read
Kari
@Kari -
17 days ago
The Early Life of Gibberish
For as long as the English language has been spoken, we have entertained the possibility of talking gibberish. While nonsense uses real words to make sentences that make no sense, gibberish is made of sounds and syllables which cannot be decoded. It may seem the most stup...continued
1 minute read
Clarissa
@Clarissa -
18 days ago
On Her Most Serene Republic’s Secret Service
To continue reading this article you will need to purchase access to the online archive. Buy Online Access Buy Print & Archive Subscription If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in. Please email d...continued
1 minute read
Sandrine
@Sandrine -
19 days ago
Child Voters | History Today
The Belfast Telegraph of 7 February 1906 ran a story under the headline ‘The Youngest Voter in the Kingdom’. It concerned Alexander Atkinson, a mill worker from County Antrim, who had recently cast his ballot in that year’s General Election: as a ‘thoroughgoing loyalist’,...continued
2 minutes read
Alexie
@Alexie -
22 days ago
On the Spot: Archie Brown
Why are you a historian of the Soviet Union? Because Leonard Schapiro put the idea in my head. What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That even ‘unreformable’ systems can be reformed or dismantled from within. Which history book has had the greatest inf...continued
2 minutes read
Joe
@Joe -
22 days ago
Horse Power | History Today
In the West, the 19th century was a frenetic one for the horse, which became ubiquitous and democratised, fetishised and consumed in multiple senses. Industrialisation and urbanisation required an army of equids, while leisure equestrianism opened up to a larger audience....continued
4 minutes read
Hank
@Hank -
23 days ago
An Epidemic of Shame | History Today
The global pandemic has sent journalists reaching for their history books: how have epidemics shaped history? What can the influenza of 1918-20 teach us? In what ways did the Black Death herald a new world and build a fairer society? But Covid-19 is producing another skei...continued
4 minutes read
Pablo
@Pablo -
24 days ago
Safe as Houses? | History Today
Seventy years ago, a government-appointed committee published a report into the future of Britain’s country house heritage. The report is not as well known as the other achievements of the 1945-51 Labour government, such as the creation of the National Health Service or t...continued
5 minutes read
Marie
@Marie -
24 days ago
The Film Churchill Tried to Kill
The German army is at Stalingrad. Bomber Command is sending 479 planes to bomb Düsseldorf. And, in September 1942, Winston Churchill is writing to Brendan Bracken, his Minister of Information (and founder of History Today), about a British film already in production: ‘Pro...continued
2 minutes read
George
@George -
25 days ago
History Wars | History Today
History is always politics. For governments, as well as social and religious institutions, control of narratives about the past is a vital source of authority and legitimation in the present. In the age of the Reformation this became more evident than during any previous ...continued
5 minutes read
Kristina
@Kristina -
25 days ago
Question Marx | History Today
Why should Karl Marx be included in Yale’s excellent Jewish Lives series when the subject of this fascinating book never referred to his Jewish origins? Shlomo Avineri, the eminent Israeli intellectual and academic, has attempted to unravel Marx’s connection to his Jewish...continued
3 minutes read
Raoul
@Raoul -
26 days ago
Follow the Money | History Today
In her last book, Liberty’s Dawn, Emma Griffin argued that Britain’s Industrial Revolution brought significant gains to men’s lives. Drawing on hundreds of working-class autobiographies, she showed how economic change meant higher earnings, greater variety of occupations ...continued
3 minutes read