History

Anything to do with History

Cameron @Cameron - almost 4 years ago

Classics for the Working Masses

The study of Classics has long been associated with expensive schools and elite universities. But this is not the whole picture. With Henry Stead, I am writing a book on ways in which, from the 18th century onwards, working-class Britons embraced ancient Greece and Rome....continued

4 minutes read

Elliott @Elliott - almost 4 years ago

History Today Quiz: August

[unable to retrieve full-text content]History Today Quiz: AugustHistory Today Test your history knowledge in our monthly quiz.

1 minute read

Nestor @Nestor - almost 4 years ago

Orpheus and Eurydice | History Today

Orpheus and Eurydice, hand in hand, walk away from the fiery underworld and its deities, Pluto and Proserpine. Orpheus, singer, musician and poet, carrying a lyre on his shoulder, had recently married Eurydice, but on the day of their wedding, ‘in the very bloom of her li...continued

3 minutes read

Teagan @Teagan - almost 4 years ago

Regulation and Reputation | History Today

Booms, with hindsight, may prove bubbles. So it is that Alan Greenspan, appointed Federal Reserve chairman by Ronald Reagan and hailed by the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward as the ‘maestro’ of Wall Street’s extraordinary 1990s gains, has suffered a plummet in reputation s...continued

3 minutes read

Manley @Manley - almost 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

Giovanni @Giovanni - almost 4 years ago

Travels Through Time #17 – Radicalism, Madness and Laughing Gas in 1799

In 1799, Britain was at war. There was instability at home and widespread hardship. The cost and economic disruption pressed hard, leading to inflation, the collapse of the gold standard in 1797, the introduction of income tax and the stagnation of average real wages. The...continued

2 minutes read

Alexander @Alexander - almost 4 years ago

The History of the Barbecue

Lockhart, Texas has plenty of reasons to feel proud. With its unique collection of 19th-century buildings, it is one of the prettiest towns in Caldwell County – and a favourite of Hollywood producers. More than 50 films have been made there, from Baby, the Rain Must Fall ...continued

11 minutes read

Pablo @Pablo - almost 4 years ago

Theft is Property | History Today

During the 16th century, the Roman market for antiquities became highly competitive. Competence and money were crucial, but so were unscrupulousness and a fighting spirit. In the words of Cardinal Giovanni Ricci, who acted as a Medici agent in Rome in the 1560s, antiquiti...continued

5 minutes read

Rex @Rex - almost 4 years ago

On The Spot: Helen Parr

Why are you a historian of contemporary Britain?Contemporary history seems more important than ever. It offers a counterweight to lazy political evocations of the past and to the instant histories enabled by the Internet.What’s the most important lesson history has taught...continued

2 minutes read

Elaina @Elaina - almost 4 years ago

The Great Divide | History Today

‘Despotism tempered by assassination’ was Richard Burton’s definition of governance in Syria and the Levant under Ottoman rule. Burton was British consul in Aleppo from 1869 to 1871 and saw communal tensions at first hand. A noted Arabic scholar, he travelled to Mecca and...continued

4 minutes read

George @George - almost 4 years ago

In Her Time | History Today

The new interest in women’s contribution to culture in the past has been unevenly conferred. This is by no means the first biography of Alma Mahler-Werfel and is unlikely to be the last. There are plenty of first-rank women artists and creative figures of her time who go ...continued

4 minutes read

Joe @Joe - almost 4 years ago

Seeds of Conflict | History Today

John Lambert is one of the most remarkable yet neglected figures in British history. The author of the country’s only written constitution, the Instrument of Government of 1653, he had proved himself a brilliant commander at the Battles of Dunbar in 1650 and Inverkeithing...continued

2 minutes read

Rahsaan @Rahsaan - almost 4 years ago

A Liberal History | History Today

Long considered the dominant ideology of the West, liberalism is in crisis. Its principles are in retreat around the world. Populism, authoritarianism and nationalism are on the rise. The Economist recently sounded the alarm: ‘Liberalism made the modern world, but the mod...continued

2 minutes read

Maureen @Maureen - almost 4 years ago

The Free Frenchman | History Today

The 40th anniversary of Admiral Lord Mountbatten’s assassination by the Provisional IRA in County Sligo, Ireland falls on 7 August 2019. There was a cruel irony in militant Irish republicans labelling Mountbatten a ‘legitimate target’. As the Allies’ supreme commander in ...continued

1 minute read

Jessika @Jessika - almost 4 years ago

What are the Enduring Legacies of the American Civil War?

The Civil War left far too much the same Susan-Mary Grant, Professor of American History at Newcastle University In The Gilded Age, the novel that named the postwar era, Mark Twain observed that the Civil War had ‘uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the...continued

8 minutes read

Alvah @Alvah - almost 4 years ago

Poisonous Ideas on Repeat | History Today

In August 2017, white nationalists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting ‘Jews will not replace us!’ They espoused a depressing, if familiar world view: that it is Jews who control the banks and the media, imposing their morality on ‘real’ Americans. In a new boo...continued

3 minutes read

Maida @Maida - almost 4 years ago

Memories of a Massacre | History Today

On Monday 16 August 1819, 60,000 men, women and children gathered for a mass rally in Manchester. They had progressed to St Peter’s Field on the southern edge of the town from the city’s working-class districts and the surrounding textile weaving regions, including Rochda...continued

1 minute read

Nestor @Nestor - almost 4 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

2 minutes read

Kraig @Kraig - almost 4 years ago

Doctoring the Ladies | History Today

One might assume that an account of how 18th-century women participated in the life of the English universities (at that point restricted to Oxford and Cambridge) would be a very short one. After all, women’s colleges only began to open their doors at end of the Victorian...continued

18 minutes read

Elian @Elian - almost 4 years ago

Travels Through Time #16 – Thomas Cromwell and Anne Boleyn

Thomas Cromwell was born c.1485 and died on the scaffold in July 1540. From humble beginnings, he entered Parliament on the strength of his service to Cardinal Wolsey, working his way up in the king’s council and service. By late 1532, he had taken Wolsey’s place as the k...continued

2 minutes read

Jessika @Jessika - almost 4 years ago

Slaves to War | History Today

‘I see that those on my side have been routed. I fear they will abandon me. I do not expect them to return. I have decided to dismount and fight by myself, until God decrees what He wants. Whoever of you wishes to depart, let him depart. By God, I would rather that you su...continued

2 minutes read

Americo @Americo - almost 4 years ago

Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Nightmare | History Today

Seventy years ago, an explosion in a far-flung corner of Soviet-ruled Kazakhstan set off an arms race that took the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. Four years earlier, the US had ended the Second World War by dropping atomic bombs on Japan. Joseph Stalin’s USSR ...continued

8 minutes read

Kristina @Kristina - almost 4 years ago

Oil and Water: The Tanker Wars

The war between Iran and Iraq, which lasted for most of the 1980s, was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the late 20th century. Casualties on both sides numbered in the hundreds of thousands. At times the combat zones bore more than a passing resemblance to First World Wa...continued

1 minute read

Clarissa @Clarissa - almost 4 years ago

A Well-Trodden Road | History Today

British politics on the eve of the Second World War remains a subject of enduring fascination. Recent years have witnessed the publication of a plethora of new books on the subject, from Daniel Todman’s Britain’s War to Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May as well as...continued

3 minutes read

Elvie @Elvie - almost 4 years ago

Chaucer: The Poet in His World

It isn’t really possible to write a biography of Chaucer. Painstaking research over many decades has turned up a small number of documents related to his life, which between them give a patchy, at times perplexing, picture. This foremost medieval English poet – always the...continued

3 minutes read