History
Anything to do with History
Hulda @Hulda - 11 months ago
The Lost City | History Today
Percy Fawcett on an expedition in South America, c.1910. GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.No one knows what became of Lt. Col. Percy Fawcett. He was last seen alive on 29 May 1925, at a place known as ‘Dead Horse Camp’, somewhere in the Mato Grosso...continued
9 minutes read
George @George - over 1 year ago
Has a War on Drugs Ever Been Won?
Detail from an oil painting of a man smoking an opium pipe, date unknown. This picture hung in an opium den in London’s Victoria Street, run by Ah Sing (d. 1890). Sing’s opium den was probably the most famous of the dens in Victorian London, and was the model for the one ...continued
8 minutes read
Elaina @Elaina - 11 months ago
Is History Written by the Winners?
The August Coup, an attempted Soviet coup d'état, Moscow, 1991. Wikimedia Commons. ‘The powerful of one era are not the same as those of the preceding one’ Levi Roach, Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Exeter and author of Empires of the Normans...continued
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Casper @Casper - about 2 months ago
Measuring the Shape of the Earth
In 1726 Voltaire faced a not very difficult choice: imprisonment without trial in the Bastille, or exile in England. After sailing across the Channel, he landed in another universe. Before leaving France, he declared, he had lived in a world that was full – but as soon as...continued
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Angus @Angus - over 4 years ago
A Second British Revolution | History Today
On 9 September, as Black Rod entered the Commons to deliver the summons to attend the Lords as part of the prorogation ceremony, a number of MPs attempted to keep the Speaker, John Bercow, in his chair. This action, as the Labour MP Clive Lewis acknowledged, was an imitat...continued
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Meggie @Meggie - 8 months ago
Nationalism in Nepal: On the Right Side of History
Illustration by Ben Jones.Balen Shah, the 33-year-old rapper and mayor of Kathmandu, is a man on various missions. Since his unlikely victory in 2022, he has waged war on government ministries, landlords, Nepal’s civil aviation authority, roadside hawkers and landless slu...continued
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Zetta @Zetta - 12 months ago
What do historians lose with the decline of local news?
Newspaper seller, London, 1900. George Grantham Bain Collection.‘By the 1990s many titles were “local in name only”’ Rachel Matthews, Associate Director of the Institute for Creative Cultures at Coventry University and author of The History of the Provincial Press in Engl...continued
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Emmie @Emmie - over 1 year ago
The 51st State? | History Today
Ben JonesOn 3 June 2022 representatives from the US Democratic Party, Raúl Grijalva, Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, travelled to Puerto Rico, where they joined the island’s resident commissioner Jenniffer González Colón, a Republican, to discuss the Puerto ...continued
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Sandrine @Sandrine - over 1 year ago
What Influence has the BBC had on History?
Venu Chitale, photographed in the 1940s. She began her career as secretary to George Orwell, and later became a prominent broadcaster. Wiki Commons.‘The BBC has always done far more than reflect the contemporary’David Hendy, Author of The BBC: A People’s History (Profile,...continued
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George @George - about 2 years ago
Was the Cold War the Biggest Change in Russia’s Relationship with the West?
Richard Nixon (right) meets Leonid Brezhnev (left) on 19 June 1973 during the Soviet Leader’s visit to the US. The interpreter is Viktor Sukhodrev. Image: The National Archives and Records Administration.‘The Cold War fits the pattern of typical conflicts between Russia a...continued
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Cyril @Cyril - 6 months ago
Why Is the United States Hostile to Socialism?
Communist Party of the United States of America election poster, c. 1975-6. Library of Congress. Public Domain.‘The view among European socialists was that the US was an outlier, and in a bad way’Adam Smith is Edward Orsborn Professor of US Politics & Political Histor...continued
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Marlon @Marlon - over 1 year ago
Sign of the Times | History Today
Ben JonesOn 18 March this year thousands of people from the British Deaf community gathered at Trafalgar Square to support the British Sign Language (BSL) Bill on its third reading in the House of Commons. The BSL Act, which came into law in June, promised momentous chang...continued
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Geovany @Geovany - over 1 year ago
Turkey’s Historical Relationship with Europe
Map showing the Sykes–Picot Agreement, a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France. British Library/Wiki Commons.‘Six decades of integration cannot be undone, even by a strongman like Erdoğan’Dimitar Bechev, Author of Turkey Under Erdoğan: How a Country Tu...continued
7 minutes read
Alexander @Alexander - over 1 year ago
Turkey and Europe’s Difficult History
Map showing the Sykes–Picot Agreement, a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France. British Library/Wiki Commons.‘Six decades of integration cannot be undone, even by a strongman like Erdoğan’Dimitar Bechev, Author of Turkey Under Erdoğan: How a Country Tu...continued
7 minutes read
Ryleigh @Ryleigh - 7 months ago
Will Putin Get His ‘Nuremberg Moment’?
© Ben Jones/Heart Agency.Interviewed in the Guardian in March 2022, the international lawyer Philippe Sands said that: ‘The world changed in 1945. It was a revolutionary moment. For the first time, states agreed that they were not absolutely sovereign, that they could not...continued
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Jany @Jany - 11 months ago
What We Talk About When We Talk About Tunguska
Ben Jones.Just over a decade after the imperial outpost of Tsaritsyn had become the Soviet city of Stalingrad in 1925, a young writer named Manuil Semenov published a short story, ‘Prisoners of the Earth’, in Young Leninist, the local newspaper of the Communist Youth Leag...continued
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Alexie @Alexie - about 1 year ago
Does the Concept of the Third World have any Historical Value?
Pocket globe, c. 1775. Cambridge University Library/Google Arts and Culture.‘The so-called Third World rarely acted collectively’Hazem Kandil, Professor of Historical and Political Sociology at the University of CambridgeCatch-all terms are inherently inaccurate, though t...continued
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Dayton @Dayton - 12 months ago
A Secret History of Mongolian Wolves
Ben JonesIn Mongolia, where the dominant lifestyle is nomadic pastoralism, threat comes from the land. Wolves (chono) are found throughout the nation’s various ecosystems: steppe, semi-desert, mountains. Their existence has been lamented and romanticised for centuries.Mon...continued
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Izaiah @Izaiah - over 4 years ago
Leaving Hong Kong | History Today
Hong Kong’s summer has been marked by widespread political unrest. The trigger was a proposed bill that would allow the territory’s government to extradite Hong Kong residents to countries with which Hong Kong did not have an extradition treaty. Prominently, these include...continued
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Hank @Hank - 6 months ago
Four Historians Tell Us a Ghost Story
Amateurs playing ghost scene by photographer W. S. Hobson, c. 1887. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Public Domain.‘What the servant saw made him drop the tray with an almighty crash’Francis Young, author of English Catholics and the Supernatural (Ashgate, 2013) Lat...continued
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Marjory @Marjory - about 4 years ago
Escape to Mexico | History Today
On 12 November 2019 a Gulfstream G550 belonging to the Mexican air force landed in the Bolivian jungle. On board was Evo Morales, president of Bolivia for 14 years, who three weeks earlier had claimed his fourth election victory. After detours to prevent a diplomatic inci...continued
9 minutes read
Anderson @Anderson - over 1 year ago
Demanding Surrender | History Today
Ben JonesAnglo-American extradition is in the news. The administrations of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have refused to return Anne Sacoolas for prosecution over teenager Harry Dunn’s death in 2019 on the grounds of her diplomatic immunity. Yet both have pressed for th...continued
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Mariano @Mariano - 10 months ago
Off with Their Heads! | History Today
Ben JonesRecent years have seen a slow but steadily rising tide of dissatisfaction with royalty in Britain. Accelerated by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the coronation of King Charles III and a regular diet of scandal surrounding Prince Andrew, as well as the fracturin...continued
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Felicita @Felicita - 9 months ago
Germany and the Yellow Star
Illustration by Ben JonesDuring the Covid pandemic, as those opposed to lockdowns and vaccinations organised large protests, several German cities reacted with alarm. Some protesters had taken to wearing a yellow star – the symbol first forced upon Jews by the Nazis in Se...continued
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Wilmer @Wilmer - 8 months ago
What Can Historical Clothing Reveal That Other Sources Cannot?
A painting of Elizabeth I by William Segar, known as the Ermine Portrait, in the collection of Hatfield House. Public Domain.‘What survives speaks eloquently of the emotional value placed on items of attire’Maria Hayward, author of Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Sc...continued
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