History

Anything to do with History

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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Jerrold @Jerrold - almost 5 years ago

The Bengal Famine of 1943

On an October morning in 1943, a scientist employed by the government of Bengal was travelling by boat along the Brahmaputra river from Bahadurabad to take up his new job in Dhaka (now capital of Bangladesh). All along the 120-mile journey, he saw bodies of dead and dying...continued

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Zackery @Zackery - over 4 years ago

History in Ruins | History Today

As the German Sixth Army prepared to retreat behind the Hindenburg Line in the early months of 1917, General Erich Ludendorff ordered the destruction of the medieval castle of Coucy in northern France. Soldiers packed 28 tonnes of dynamite around the base of the castle’s ...continued

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Alexandro @Alexandro - 8 months ago

Pompeii is Found

Mosaic discovered in the House of the Faun, Pompeii, c.AD 100. Album/Alamy Stock PhotoLocals called the area ‘La Cività’; a clue, perhaps. It was proposed as the site of Pompeii as early as 1637, but formal digs did not begin until 1748. The site’s value was as a source o...continued

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Leda @Leda - over 3 years ago

The Enemies Within | History Today

The horse-drawn wagon trundled through the middle of Manhattan. The driver, faceless among the hundreds of bankers, porters and clerks who were enjoying their lunch break in the brave autumn sun, brought the vehicle to a stop at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets, a jun...continued

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Giovanni @Giovanni - almost 4 years ago

The Discovery of Sparta | History Today

The chances are that you know of Leonidas and that you have heard of Thermopylae, both of which have been commemorated in Greece this year with 2,500-year anniversary coins. But what about the travellers, traders, cheats, conmen and the professionally curious who excavate...continued

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Bart @Bart - over 4 years ago

The Torrid Zone | History Today

In 1777 the naval surgeon Robert Robertson published the ‘physical journal’ that he had kept during three voyages to Africa and the West Indies a few years before. As part of his discussion of illnesses on the island of Antigua, Robertson related the story of Charles Dupl...continued

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Devin @Devin - over 3 years ago

Perfume, History, Dreams | History Today

How do we write about the history of perfume? There is a choice of interpretative pathways. We may focus on nature, plants and substances – perhaps start with a story of spikenard, of frankincense, ambergris and myrrh. We can think about the fragrance of flowers and the a...continued

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Hannah @Hannah - over 3 years ago

Captain Cook’s Contested Claim | History Today

Two hundred and fifty years ago, on 22 August 1770, Captain James Cook claimed possession of much of the Australian continent in the name of George III. It is commonly believed that this act changed the course of the territory’s history. Yet Cook’s actions in Australia ar...continued

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Alexander @Alexander - over 1 year ago

The Conquest of Lisbon | History Today

Scene from the Siege of Lisbon, by Pereira Cão, Palácio da Rosa, Lisbon, 19th century. Wiki Commons.In early 1147 the Devon port of Dartmouth was the gathering point for the Second Crusade, drawing would-be holy warriors from across northern Europe. There were at least 16...continued

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Cameron @Cameron - about 2 years ago

Birthday of the Dead | History Today

Happy Dance and Wild Party of All the Skeletons, engraving by José Guadalupe Posada © Bridgeman Images.The artist José Guadalupe Posada was born on 2 February 1852 in the city of Aguascalientes in central Mexico. He produced over 20,000 engravings during his career, but, ...continued

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Kristina @Kristina - over 1 year ago

The Face of Beatrice Cenci

‘Portrait of Beatrice Cenci’ (detail), attributed to Ginevra Cantofoli, 17th century. J.T. Vintage/Bridgeman Images.Charles Dickens, visiting Rome early in 1845, found himself haunted by a painting. It was, he said, ‘almost impossible to be forgotten’. It was of a young w...continued

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Hannah @Hannah - over 4 years ago

A Perfect Landing | History Today

Pete Conrad was confused. One minute he was commenting cheerfully on a ‘lovely lift-off’ and the next the master alarm was blaring through his headset. He was the only one on board who had seen the flash outside but, as the three crew members scrambled to work out what wa...continued

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Rahsaan @Rahsaan - over 4 years ago

Himmler's Witch Hunt | History Today

In the summer of 1936, most observers of Germany were focused on the Berlin Olympics. Beyond establishing Aryan superiority in the field of competition, Chancellor Hitler and his deputies intended to showcase German prosperity under National Socialist rule and refute repo...continued

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Maureen @Maureen - almost 4 years ago

Hard Work | History Today

Universal credit, introduced by the UK government in 2013, was intended to represent a significant development in social security policy. It aims to simplify provision for both workless and poor in-work households, as well as providing incentives for people to seek paid e...continued

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Erik @Erik - 11 months ago

Sancta Sophia Collapses | History Today

View of the Hagia Sophia by Jan Luyken, engraving, 1681. Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.Barely 20 years old and there were already cracks in the dome of Justinian’s church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople. Two great earthquakes, in October and Decembe...continued

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Assunta @Assunta - almost 5 years ago

'The Last Front' of the Freikorps

In the summer of 1919, as the victorious Allied powers were hammering out the terms of the peace settlement after the First World War, the Allied press began to pay closer attention to an area of Europe that had hitherto played little part in the deliberations of the peac...continued

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Felicita @Felicita - almost 4 years ago

The Roots of Disorder | History Today

The Resolution first caught sight of the Pacific island of Tahiti on the evening of 15 August 1773. Among those onboard were the German naturalists Johann Reinhold Forster and his 19-year-old son, Georg, whose main task was to produce illustrations of the plants and anima...continued

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Delia @Delia - about 2 years ago

The Great Wine Blight | History Today

Vineyards at Auvers, Vincent van Gogh, June 1890. Saint Louis Museum of Art.There can have been few more surprising consequences of the Columbian Exchange than the near total destruction of European wine production in the 19th century.The cause was phylloxera, a microscop...continued

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Mariano @Mariano - over 3 years ago

Nero Versus the Christians | History Today

Mary Stocks, scholar, political activist, writer and journalist, published a play in 1933, provocatively titled Hail Nero! A Reinterpretation of History in Three Acts. It presents the notorious emperor (who reigned AD 54 to 68) as a figure driven by his concern for social...continued

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Joe @Joe - about 4 years ago

Soviet Super Sniper: A Woman at War

In 1942, Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Soviet frontline sniper, was sent on a mission to convince US and British allies to open up a Second Front against Hitler’s forces. The ‘Guerrilla Queen’ was feted at sites of bomb damage, munitions factories and shipyards, ente...continued

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Muriel @Muriel - about 1 year ago

Martyrdom of an Old Believer

The Burning of Archpriest Avvakum, by Grigoriy Myasoyedov, 1897. Alamy.Archpriest Avvakum Petrov spent the last 14 years of his life in a pit in Pustozersk, high above the Arctic Circle. Born around 1620, he had become a leader of the Old Believers in the schism that spli...continued

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Arvid @Arvid - almost 4 years ago

The Wrongful Death of Toussaint Louverture

On the morning of 7 April 1803, Toussaint Louverture, leader of the slave insurrection in French Saint-Domingue that led to the Haitian Revolution, was found dead by a guard in the prison in France where he had been held captive for nearly eight months. The guard, Citizen...continued

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Hulda @Hulda - over 3 years ago

One Election Too Many | History Today

Well into the 20th century, graduates could vote twice in UK General Elections: once in their local constituencies and again through their universities, which at one point held 14 seats between them. The idea that universities should have parliamentary representation bega...continued

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