History
Anything to do with History
Dayton
@Dayton -
over 4 years ago
The Art of War | History Today
The death of Michael Howard in November at the age of 97 was widely marked. To describe him as a military historian is true – indeed he was one of the very greatest – but to do so hardly captures the breadth and depth of a man who, before establishing the War Studies Depa...continued
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George
@George -
over 4 years ago
Academic Debts | History Today
The political commentator Jenni Russell, in a column in The Times published last November, compared the popularity of history as a subject for books and TV – citing Yuval Noah Harari, Amanda Foreman and The Crown – with the decline in the numbers of students studying hist...continued
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Adelia
@Adelia -
about 4 years ago
State of the Nation | History Today
Sometimes history accelerates, and it can do so in reverse. Much has been written and will be for a long time to come about the crisis caused by Covid-19, but one thing is certain: the nation state is back and, judging by the scale of intervention, at its most Leviathan, ...continued
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Elody
@Elody -
about 4 years ago
The Combat of the Thirty
In early 1351, with the war to control the Duchy of Brittany grinding to a stalemate, Jean de Beaumanoir, a leader of the French-supported Blois faction, challenged Robert Bemborough, a senior knight of the English-backed Montfortist faction, to combat. Bemborough suggest...continued
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Abbie
@Abbie -
over 4 years ago
Man for a Crisis | History Today
Churchill considered him ‘by far the most distinguished man that the Labour Party has thrown up in my time’. Attlee, Churchill’s wartime deputy, reflecting on his political allies, declared: ‘There’s the man I miss.’ Despite their different temperaments, Churchill and Att...continued
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Nestor
@Nestor -
almost 5 years ago
The Temple of Artemis burns
Following the destruction of the original temple at Ephesus by flooding in the seventh century BC, a new temple to Artemis was commissioned, c.560 BC, by the fabulously wealthy King Croesus of Lydia – the man credited with issuing the first proper gold coins of a set weig...continued
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Cameron
@Cameron -
almost 5 years ago
Cohn the Canary | History Today
There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, ...continued
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Immanuel
@Immanuel -
over 4 years ago
Defeat of the Dutch Fleet
In the winter of 1795 the French Revolutionary Wars were still raging and it was a dangerous time for the stadtholder of the Dutch republic, William, Prince of Orange, who had reason to fear both the French and his own people. His had been a long minority and a series of ...continued
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Giovanni
@Giovanni -
over 4 years ago
The Arrow Incident | History Today
The outcome of the First Opium War had been a triumph for Britain, albeit one Gladstone described as ‘more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace’. It did not achieve Britain’s diplomatic and trade goals, however. To achieve these another...continued
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Abbie
@Abbie -
over 4 years ago
Death of the Man in the Iron Mask
At the end of July 1669 the French Secretary of State for War, the Marquis de Louvois, wrote to the governor of Pignerol prison telling him to expect a new inmate, one ‘Eustache Dauger’. The instructions were unusually thorough and involved housing the prisoner in a room ...continued
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Kristina
@Kristina -
over 4 years ago
The Eggnog Riots | History Today
The rules for young officers at West Point Military Academy in New York were strict. Alcohol possession could lead to expulsion and even smoking tobacco could affect one’s chances of graduating. Of course, the cadets took great delight in ignoring these rules completely. ...continued
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Nelson
@Nelson -
over 4 years ago
The First Women to Cross the US on Solo Motorcycles
Sisters Augusta and Adeline Van Buren, descendants of Martin Van Buren, the eighth US president, crossed the United States on motorcycles in 1916, riding 5,500 miles in 60 days on hazardous roads. The previous year, Effie Hotchkiss had completed the same journey, with her...continued
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Rowan
@Rowan -
almost 2 years ago
The Phoenix | History Today
Phoenix by Hokusai, Japan, c.1835 © Bridgeman Images.In the Western tradition the phoenix is born triumphantly from the flaming nest of its predecessor and lives for 500 years. This dates back to Herodotus’ Histories (c.430 BC), but has ancient analogues in the fenghuang ...continued
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Adelia
@Adelia -
about 4 years 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
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Ismael
@Ismael -
6 months ago
London Necropolis Railway Opens
The London Necropolis Railway station at Westminster Bridge Road from Living London Vol. III by George Sims, 1903. Public Domain.Death in Victorian London was problematic. ‘London graveyards are all bad’, the Board of Health reported, ‘differing only in degrees of badness...continued
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Jarod
@Jarod -
almost 5 years ago
Death of Arjumand Banu Begum
Arjumand Banu was the granddaughter of an impoverished former Persian noble who had arrived at the Mughal Court with only two donkeys to his name. She became known at court both for her beauty and her learning, reading Arabic and Persian and composing poems in the latter....continued
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Elaina
@Elaina -
almost 4 years ago
Penelope | History Today
Josiah Wedgwood, the great industrialist and pottery designer, commissioned Joseph Wright of Derby to paint a tribute to female loyalty and industry. Unsurprisingly, Wright took as his subject Penelope, the wife of the Greek hero Odysseus, King of Ithaca, who had left for...continued
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Maureen
@Maureen -
almost 4 years ago
Behind the Mask | History Today
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak to be a global pandemic. The first reaction of officials in Wuhan, the presumed epicentre of the outbreak, had been to cover it up, but by mid-January, the situation had become so severe ...continued
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Marie
@Marie -
almost 4 years 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
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Nestor
@Nestor -
6 months ago
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Becomes Legend
Sign entering Tombstone, Arizona mentioning the so-called Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, 1937. New York Public Library. Public Domain.Gunfights were news in Tombstone, Arizona but not headline news. One local paper, The Tombstone Epitaph, had a regular column for them title...continued
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Elaina
@Elaina -
8 months ago
John Goffe Rand Invents Paint Tubes
‘Poor of purse’: self-portrait, by John Goffe Rand, c.1836. Five years later Rand patented the first paint tube for storing oil paints. Smithsonian American Art Museum.Was it true, as Giorgio Vasari wrote, that oil painting was invented in the 15th century by Jan van Eyck...continued
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Jerrold
@Jerrold -
over 4 years ago
The Aztec God of the Dead
The skeletal figure of Mictlantecuhtli, Aztec god of the dead, raises his arms, ready to tear his victims apart. To his left stands Ehecatl, god of the wind, an aspect of the creator serpent-god Quetzalcoatl. Mictlantecuhtli, King of Mictlan, inhabits a windowless home sh...continued
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Alexander
@Alexander -
about 4 years ago
The April Issue | History Today
When we sent the April issue to print two weeks ago, we were seeing an epidemic unfold, and had asked four historians to contribute to an article on lessons which could be drawn from history. By the time the magazine was printed, the world was experiencing a pandemic, the...continued
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Colin
@Colin -
almost 4 years 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
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Izaiah
@Izaiah -
almost 4 years ago
Theodore’s Mercy Mission | History Today
Five of the first six archbishops of Canterbury to be consecrated were not native to England. None, however, came from as far afield as the seventh: Theodore, born in 602, was a Greek-speaking monk from Tarsus – birthplace of St Paul and now the Turkish city of Gözlü Kule...continued
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