History
Anything to do with History
Ericka
@Ericka -
11 months ago
Human Rites | History Today
A Block for the Wigs, by the caricaturist James Gillray, 1783. Wikimedia Commons.The Whig interpretation of history, wrote Herbert Butterfield in 1931, meant writing ‘to emphasise certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification ...continued
5 minutes read
Kari
@Kari -
8 months ago
‘Homer and His Iliad’ by Robin Lane Fox review
Achilles tending to Patroclus’ wounds in a scene from Homer’s Iliad depicted on a vase, c. 500 BC. Altes Museum. Public Domain.Faced with a jumble of bewildering ruins, modern visitors to Hisarlik in northwest Turkey, the site of ancient Troy, may find themselves perplexe...continued
6 minutes read
Muriel
@Muriel -
about 2 years ago
An Acceptable Hero | History Today
Josephine Baker c.1930. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.On 30 November 2021 Josephine Baker, the African-American performer who took French citizenship, was inducted into the Pantheon. The Pantheon is France’s secular equivalent to Westminster Abbey, the hallowed home ...continued
5 minutes read
Madalyn
@Madalyn -
about 4 years ago
Pause for Thought | History Today
Susan P. Mattern’s The Slow Moon Climbs opens with the 12th-century example of Hoelun, mother of Chinggis Khan, whose story is recounted in the The Secret History of the Mongols. Exiled and widowed, Hoelun and her seven children survived by cunning, plotting revenge and...continued
5 minutes read
Ismael
@Ismael -
11 months ago
In Der Tat | History Today
Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg Trials, 1945. Wikimedia Commons.In his recent book, Dan Stone characterised the Holocaust as ‘unfinished history’, even in Germany, ‘the consummate country of contrition’. Does facing up to the past actually contest dangerous ideas ...continued
5 minutes read
Clarissa
@Clarissa -
over 4 years ago
Testing Times | History Today
‘Which of the following statements is correct?:A) Elizabeth I handled Parliament very badly during her reign.B) Elizabeth I had very good relations with Parliament.’ As a senior lecturer in Early Modern History, who has published on this topic, I honestly have no idea wha...continued
5 minutes read
Oren
@Oren -
12 months ago
It's Not Just Cricket | History Today
Manipuri polo players in northern India, 1875.Like so much else, the modern idea of culture is an invention of the Victorians. In fact, they invented it more than once. Poet Matthew Arnold famously opted for an elitist definition – ‘the best that has been thought and know...continued
5 minutes read
Immanuel
@Immanuel -
over 1 year ago
Turning on the Waterworks | History Today
The waterworks built beneath old London Bridge by Peter Morice in 1581 to supply water to the City, c.1600. Heritage Images/Getty Images.In 1581 Peter Morice began paying the City of London ten shillings a year to rent the northernmost arch of London Bridge. Under the arc...continued
6 minutes read
Alvah
@Alvah -
almost 4 years ago
Public and Private Pleasures | History Today
The story of England’s preternatural taste for coffee is well known. Originally cultivated in Ethiopia, coffee entered the Islamic world in the early 16th century, becoming a staple of first Arabic and then Turkish society. Following the bean came the coffeehouse, a new i...continued
6 minutes read
Mariano
@Mariano -
12 months ago
Average Queens | History Today
Elisabeth Valois, Queen of Spain, by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz.On 4 September 1561, Mary, Queen of Scots met John Knox for the first time. Three years before, he had written the book widely known as the Monstrous Regiment, formally The First Blast of the Trumpet against the...continued
6 minutes read
Liliane
@Liliane -
6 months ago
‘Europe and the Roma’ by Klaus-Michael Bogdal review
A Roma camp on the outskirts of paris by photographer Eugène Atget, c. 1913. J. Paul Getty Museum. Public Domain.Ethnic and cultural difference was, in late 19th-century Europe, of keen interest to scholars and the public alike. When, for instance, a Roma group made camp ...continued
5 minutes read
Alexandro
@Alexandro -
almost 2 years ago
Fu Manchu in Bern | History Today
Poster for The Face of Fu Manchu, 1965. Ronald Grant Archive/Top Foto.In the 1960s newspapers around the world claimed that the Chinese embassy in Bern had become ‘Red China’s Spy Centre’: In the gloom behind those shutters, the Red Chinese direct an underground whose age...continued
5 minutes read
Manley
@Manley -
almost 4 years 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
George
@George -
almost 4 years ago
Art of the Corpse | History Today
Art is often used to express how different cultures perceive the inevitability of death and to try to make sense of what happens after we die. With some exceptions, western paintings tend to reflect on the subject’s life, or romanticise and beautify the moment of death to...continued
5 minutes read
Rowan
@Rowan -
over 4 years ago
Jesus the Medieval Feminist | History Today
That women were legally, economically and socially disadvantaged in medieval Europe will come as no surprise. What is interesting, however, are the biological reasons given for this inferiority. Women’s bodies, Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica, show a troubling am...continued
6 minutes read
Elaina
@Elaina -
over 3 years ago
The Sweet Sound of Success
The Union, ‘a most capacious and elegant pleasure yacht’, set sail from Kew Bridge on 29 August 1777 to begin a 12-day maiden voyage. As she plied her course along the Thames to Reading, her passengers enjoyed the amenities of a ‘Convenient Cook Room’, bedchambers, a Stat...continued
5 minutes read
Cyril
@Cyril -
over 1 year ago
Polished Off | History Today
Józef Piłsudski, 1934 © Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy Stock Photo.Reminiscing about his childhood decades later, Józef Piłsudski recalled that ‘sometime between the ages of seven and nine … I decided that if I am still alive at the age of fifteen … then I would lead an...continued
6 minutes read
Hank
@Hank -
over 4 years ago
Building Borders | History Today
The Aliens Act of 1905 was the first attempt by the British Parliament to establish a system of controlled migration. As such it is seen by historians as a watershed moment, putting an end to the Victorian ‘golden age’ of migration, which, with its ever-decreasing transpo...continued
6 minutes read
Wilmer
@Wilmer -
2 months ago
Bad Omens: When the Astrologers Got it Wrong
On the morning of 1 February 1524 hundreds of Londoners gathered by the Thames in dreadful anticipation. This day had been a long time coming. Preparations had begun months and, in some cases, years earlier: homes had been stocked with provisions, doors and walls had been...continued
5 minutes read
Alan
@Alan -
about 4 years 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
Maureen
@Maureen -
12 months ago
Tick Tock | History Today
Temperance bearing an hourglass from Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government, 1338.The slow drag of time – when we’re stuck on hold to a call centre or sitting through another interminable online meeting – may feel like a feature of modern life, but it was famil...continued
5 minutes read
Joe
@Joe -
over 3 years ago
No Such Thing | History Today
The title of The Invention of China, and of each of its chapters that address sovereignty, the Han race, Chinese history, language, national territory and maritime claims, echo The Invention of Tradition. That seminal collection, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger...continued
5 minutes read
Bart
@Bart -
about 1 year ago
The Liberation of Lilith | History Today
Adam protecting a child from the snake, identified as Lilith. Fresco in Strozzi Chapel by Filippino Lippi, Florence, 15th century. Alamy.The Jewish demoness Lilith is well known in the present day. A seductive, child-killing monster, she appears in everything from video g...continued
6 minutes read
Cynthia
@Cynthia -
over 4 years ago
The Nuclear Taboo | History Today
Why did the US not use nuclear weapons in Vietnam? We often assume that it was the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction that kept both superpowers from ever using them. But intelligence reports from the period paint a more nuanced picture, one where global abhorrence ...continued
6 minutes read
Manley
@Manley -
over 4 years ago
Which Marks? | History Today
The stunning landscape associated with the magnesium limestone rocks of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire border is scattered with narrow, steep-sided gorges or ‘grips’, containing caves and rocky shelters, the most famous of which is Creswell Crags. The Crags are known ...continued
6 minutes read