History
Anything to do with History
Monserrat
@Monserrat -
over 4 years ago
Catholicism and its Critics | History Today
Tom Holland’s stupendous new book argues that while we might think we live in an irreligious culture, almost everything about the West is actually an inheritance from Christianity. ‘To dream of a world transformed by a reformation, or an enlightenment, or a revolution is ...continued
5 minutes read
Alan
@Alan -
almost 2 years ago
Burn in Hell | History Today
The burning of the Orléans heretics, by Jan Luyken, from Martyrs Mirror, 1685. Artokoloro/Alamy Stock Photo.A thousand years ago, in 1022, an extraordinary event took place in the city of Orléans in northern France. A group of about 14 people, led by two canons named Step...continued
5 minutes read
Assunta
@Assunta -
7 months ago
The Medieval University Experience
Carving of medieval university students on the tomb of the scholar Giovanni da Legnano, Bologna, 14th century. Sailko (CC BY 2.5).Starting university has always been a difficult time for children and parents – and the experience was no different for medieval scholars and ...continued
5 minutes read
Rex
@Rex -
about 4 years ago
Who’s the Purest of them All?
David D. Hall has devoted his career to restoring the reputation of the religious sensibilities of the first English migrants to New England. His first book, The Faithful Shepherd: A History of the New England Ministry in the Seventeenth Century (1972) recounted the lives...continued
5 minutes read
Devin
@Devin -
over 3 years ago
How To Get Away with Murder
In 176 BC a strange but revealing murder case came before the Roman praetor, M. Popillius Laenas. A woman, unnamed in the sources, was brought before the court on the charge of murdering her mother by bludgeoning her with a club. The woman happily confessed to the monstro...continued
5 minutes read
Jeffrey
@Jeffrey -
almost 3 years ago
The Abode of Madness | History Today
The term no man’s land comes with clear connotations of war, especially trench warfare on the Western Front. Yet the concept of ‘none man’s land’, nanesmaneslande, first appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, referring to the area that is now Hyde Park in London. The phras...continued
5 minutes read
Eleanora
@Eleanora -
about 2 years ago
Fools at Court | History Today
The family of Henry VIII, c.1545. The figure on the far left is thought to be Jayne Foole. Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2022/Bridgeman Images.In the Tudor court disabled people were hidden in plain sight and are often forgotten in histories of ...continued
5 minutes read
Maida
@Maida -
almost 4 years ago
Life in the Time of Plague
Nearly 30 years after his accession to the throne and following a long struggle to provide a healthy male heir, Henry VIII had finally produced the legitimate son he craved. At around 2am on Friday 12 October 1537, Prince Edward, the future Edward VI, was born at Hampton ...continued
5 minutes read
Alvah
@Alvah -
about 1 year ago
Messy Beginnings | History Today
Mughal emperor Jahangir holding a portrait of his father, Akbar the Great, 17th century. Bridgeman Images.Nandini Das’ captivating new book about Sir Thomas Roe’s embassy to the court of Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1615-19 begins with a map. With its detailed coastlines, u...continued
5 minutes read
Anderson
@Anderson -
over 2 years ago
Crimes of Fashion | History Today
A public washing ground. English 17th-century engraving. Alamy.Could something as mundane as a shirt ever be the motive for murder? What if clothing were more expensive than rent or a mortgage? In 1636 a maidservant, Joan Burs, went out to buy mercury. A toxic heavy metal...continued
5 minutes read
Allene
@Allene -
over 4 years ago
The Best Articles of 2019
Another year and what have we learned? That the Dutch Golden Age was bookish, what it was like inside a medieval brothel, the root of the Nazi obsession with witches, how fans worked in British India, why Iran overthrew the shah and lots more. As usual, we’ve chosen a sel...continued
3 minutes read
Jarod
@Jarod -
almost 4 years ago
A Hospital ‘Manned by Women’
The speed with which the government created NHS Nightingale Hospitals to tackle the coronavirus pandemic has prompted awe – even if they haven’t proved as necessary as expected. Yet just over 100 years ago women moved with similarly remarkable speed to set up emergency ho...continued
5 minutes read
Delia
@Delia -
over 3 years ago
Revolutionary Domesticity | History Today
Spinning yarn from cotton or flax is careful, necessary work which has become invisible in modern life. But at the dawn of the American Revolution, it was revolutionary. Women across the colonies organised spinning bees to protest British regulations and altered their pur...continued
5 minutes read
Minnie
@Minnie -
11 months ago
The Indelible Hulk | History Today
Prison hulks on the Thames, by William Henry Pyne, 1805. The Print Collector / Alamy Stock Photo.In three couplets, American revolutionary Philip Freneau lambasted a new type of prison:The various horrors of these hulks to tellThese Prison Ships where pain and horror dwel...continued
5 minutes read
Zackery
@Zackery -
over 2 years ago
A Peach of a Project
Lawrence du Garde Peach’s Ladybird book on Charles II. Alamy.The playwright Lawrence du Garde Peach (1890-1974) is remembered today as the author of most of the books in the Ladybird Adventures from History series. These were a series of inexpensive, colourfully illustrat...continued
5 minutes read
Ezequiel
@Ezequiel -
10 months ago
Writing Wrongs | History Today
Harp of Erin: Frances Browne, late 19th century. The History Collection / Alamy Stock PhotoNews travelled slowly in the 1840s. Newspapers that were often printed just once or twice a week had to be carried overland by horse-drawn coaches and overseas by vessels that took ...continued
5 minutes read
Hank
@Hank -
over 4 years ago
Rewriting History | History Today
In 1810, during his first Grand Tour of Europe, Byron carved his name into a column base of the Temple of Poseidon on the Aegean coast. Although Byron himself might not have actually written the name that is left there, the story has become part of the history of the monu...continued
6 minutes read
Patrick
@Patrick -
over 4 years ago
County Lines | History Today
Gillian Darley embraces several disciplines. She is variously historian, anthropologist, topographer, geographer – but on no account psychogeographer: she is courteously dismissive of edgelands expressionism, perhaps too hastily dismissive given the sympathetic hearing sh...continued
5 minutes read
Bart
@Bart -
over 1 year ago
The Madman of the North
Charles XII at the Battle of Narva, David von Krafft, c.1700 © Fine Art Images/Bridgeman ImagesFrom his childhood Charles XII of Sweden dreamed of being a second Alexander the Great, to the extent that, when questioned about why he would want to emulate a king who died in...continued
5 minutes read
Jimmy
@Jimmy -
over 2 years ago
Swimming in the Sahara | History Today
In the far west of Egypt, in one of the harshest stretches of the Sahara desert, is a remarkable cave. On its walls are hundreds of figures: all enigmatic, some plainly oblique. Human bodies, out of proportion, travel in processions, popping in rich ochres on the light wa...continued
5 minutes read
Angus
@Angus -
almost 2 years ago
Are You Not Entertained? | History Today
Wilson Barrett and Maud Jeffrie in The Sign of the Cross, 1932. Chronicle/Alamy.The chariot scene from Ben Hur (1959) remains one of the most spectacular moments ever committed to celluloid. Costing around a quarter of the film’s total budget and shot using a team of 70 s...continued
5 minutes read
Torey
@Torey -
over 1 year ago
Military State | History Today
Said Bay, emir of the Yazidis (centre), in Sinjar, northern Iraq, 1932. Alamy.On 3 October 1932 Iraq joined the League of Nations. Symbolically, the assembly’s vote to admit Iraq, which terminated Britain’s mandate over the country, marked its independence. But true sover...continued
5 minutes read
Felicita
@Felicita -
almost 4 years 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
Torey
@Torey -
over 1 year ago
How Angels Found their Wings
The Ladder of Divine Ascent, fresco at Suceviţa Monastery in Moldavia, Romania, 16th century © Yvan Travert/ akg-images.Angels did not always have wings. It was only in the fourth century that the familiar image of the winged angel emerged. In the Roman church of Santa Pu...continued
5 minutes read
Kari
@Kari -
about 4 years ago
Full Circle | History Today
In school we learn there are 360 degrees in a circle, but where did the 360 come from? When it is pointed out that the Babylonians counted to base-60, rather than base-10 as we do, people often ask if there is a connection. The short answer is no. The longer answer involv...continued
5 minutes read