History
Anything to do with History
Gregoria
@Gregoria -
5 months ago
Opium for the Masses | History Today
Opium farmers in a poppy field in Yunnan, China, c.1900 © Pictures from History/Bridgeman Images.In October 1938, with Guomindang soldiers hammering on her door, Chen Xuying was in her bathroom frantically feeding drugs into the toilet. Though opiates were her livelihood,...continued
1 minute read
Sandrine
@Sandrine -
5 months ago
Care in the Community | History Today
To continue reading this article you will need to purchase access to the online archive.Buy Online Access Buy Print & Archive SubscriptionIf you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in.Please email digit...continued
1 minute read
Cameron
@Cameron -
5 months ago
Joan of Arc’s Trial Begins
Depiction of Joan of Arc, late 15th century. Courtesy Archives Nationales, Paris via Wikimedia/Creative Commons.She came from Domrémy in north-eastern France, where she was Jeannette. She signed her name Jehanne. But she called herself Jeanne la Pucelle, Joan the Maid.Sai...continued
2 minutes read
Hulda
@Hulda -
5 months ago
Utopian Dreams, Earthly Realities | History Today
Vera Pragnell, early 20th century. Courtesy the Author.The dream of escaping to the country retains a powerful hold on our imagination. It had a particular purchase during the interwar era, as demonstrated by the rise across Europe of a back-to-nature philosophy that embr...continued
5 minutes read
Eleanora
@Eleanora -
5 months ago
Think About It | History Today
Spectators on Nixon's motorcade route in China, February 1972. The sign reads ‘Long live the great, glorious and correct Communist Party of China!’ Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum/Wiki Commons.In 1963, Penguin published an arresting paperback, Techniques of ...continued
3 minutes read
Torey
@Torey -
5 months ago
Why Europe? Y. Pestis? | History Today
The Triumph of Death, by Pieter Bruegel, 1526 © Antiquarian Images/Alamy Stock Photo.The Black Death is back in fashion. At the turn of the 21st century, Anglophone historians tended to downplay its impact, which first hit Europe in the winter of 1347-48 and recurred freq...continued
5 minutes read
Nelson
@Nelson -
5 months ago
Hawk this Way | History Today
The Shrimp Girl, by William Hogarth, c.1745 © Bridgeman Images.One Saturday morning in July 1897, John Hurley opened his fruit stall on the side of Essex Road, a busy artery a mile north of London’s old centre. A couple of children walked up and asked for some ‘specks’, p...continued
6 minutes read
Iva
@Iva -
5 months ago
The Hills Have Eyes | History Today
Excavation of the Taplow burial mound, 19th century © The Trustees of the British Museum.You can’t plan a journey in the past, or so the train app told me. That was its polite way of informing me that (as happens pretty often) I’d accidentally put in yesterday’s date when...continued
4 minutes read
Cyril
@Cyril -
5 months ago
Polished Off | History Today
Józef Piłsudski, 1934 © Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy Stock Photo.Reminiscing about his childhood decades later, Józef Piłsudski recalled that ‘sometime between the ages of seven and nine … I decided that if I am still alive at the age of fifteen … then I would lead an...continued
6 minutes read
Elvie
@Elvie -
5 months ago
Stealing a Living | History Today
Queuing in front of a cooperative in Leipzig, 1970s © Cornelius Paas/Imagebroker/Bridgeman Images.On 13 April 1972, East Germany’s Attorney General Josef Streit wrote to Erich Honecker, then leader of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED), to request that the state’s cri...continued
1 minute read
Marie
@Marie -
5 months ago
Discovery of a Living Fossil
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer and coelacanth, c.1938 © East London Museum.It was the morning of 22 December 1938. A call came through to the East London Museum in South Africa’s Eastern Cape for its curator, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. She had asked the local trawlermen to a...continued
2 minutes read
Zetta
@Zetta -
5 months ago
The Cold, Cold War | History Today
Explorer Robert E. Peary and husky aboard the Roosevelt, c.1909 © Archive Pics/Alamy Stock Photo.In 325 BC, the Greek explorer Pytheas attempted to sail to the frozen north, a place that he called Thule. He reached Brittany, then Cornwall, eventually travelling past the n...continued
1 minute read
Marjory
@Marjory -
5 months ago
Roses are Red? | History Today
Left: Edward IV, c.1550 © Philip Mould Ltd, London/Bridgeman Images. Right: Henry VI, c.1540 © National Portrait Gallery, London.An extraordinary event happened at St John’s Field in London on 28 February 1461 – assuming that an anonymous chronicler writing in the late 15...continued
1 minute read
Rahsaan
@Rahsaan -
6 months ago
Christmas with the Tudors | History Today
‘Christmas entertainment’ illustration from A Book of Roxburghe Ballads, 1847. Bridgeman Images.In Tudor England, the festive season was a tale of contrasts. It began with a period of spiritual preparation for the coming of Christ. Its name, Advent, came from the Latin, a...continued
4 minutes read
Geovany
@Geovany -
6 months ago
Premiere of a Christmas Classic
US poster for It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946 © BFA/ RKO Radio Pictures via Alamy Stock Photo.The idea came to him while shaving. But it would be five years before the Civil War historian Philip van Doren Stern finished The Greatest Gift, his sweet, slight story about a man c...continued
2 minutes read
Elvie
@Elvie -
6 months ago
Jukurrpa | History Today
Wantapiri by Malcolm Maloney Jagamarra, 1994 © Malcolm Maloney Jagamarra. Photo: Heini Schneebeli/ Bridgeman Images.For Aboriginal Australians, Jukurrpa is fundamental to how the world came into being. The word has its origins in the Warlpiri language, spoken in the vast ...continued
2 minutes read
Casper
@Casper -
6 months ago
What Have Strikes Achieved? | History Today
‘Una huelga de obreros en Vizcaya (A strike of workers in Biscay)’, Vicente Cutanda, 1892. Museo del Prado/Wiki Commons.‘In Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, the women of Greece unite together in a sex-strike’Lynette Mitchell, Professor in Greek History and Politics at the Univer...continued
8 minutes read
Iva
@Iva -
6 months ago
Clean Sheets | History Today
Pietro Miliani’s paper mill in Fabriano, Italy in the mid-15th century. Illustration Pictures from History/ Bridgeman Images.In 1668, Edmund Waller wrote the following poetic lines about paper:Fair hand that can on virgin Paper write,Yet from the stain of Ink preserve it ...continued
6 minutes read
Teagan
@Teagan -
6 months ago
On the Spot: Paul Cartledge
The Pnyx plateau in Athens, with the Acropolis in the background. Photographed February 2021. Wiki Commons/George E. Koronaios.Why are you a historian of Ancient Greece?I knew from the age of eight that I loved Homer and wanted to be a historian.What’s the most important ...continued
2 minutes read
Cynthia
@Cynthia -
6 months ago
Armless Fun? | History Today
The Venus de Milo at the Louvre Museum, Paris, 1964. Photo © Gamma-Keystone, France via Getty Images.On 8 April 1820 Olivier Voutier was digging on the Greek island of Milos (or Melos) when he spotted something extraordinary. A 23-year-old ensign in the French navy, he ha...continued
11 minutes read
Monserrat
@Monserrat -
6 months ago
The Best Articles of 2022
We’ve put together our annual selection of some of our favourite articles from the past twelve months, in which the Rosetta Stone is deciphered, shame is inflicted upon the condemned, and criminals are subjected to vigilante justice.Read for free for a limited time and do...continued
3 minutes read
Elaina
@Elaina -
6 months ago
Personality Flaws | History Today
Winston Churchill with Joseph Stalin onboard a warship during the Crimean Conferences at Yalta, Russia, February 1945. U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.According to Karl Marx, ‘Men make their own history, but not as they please, in con...continued
4 minutes read
Bart
@Bart -
6 months ago
Death from Above | History Today
The fumigation of Westminster Hall, 1971 © Hulton Deutsch/ Contributor via Getting images. Corbis Historical Collection.In the late summer of 1917, as a weary and grieving Britain braced itself for a fourth year of the First World War, a battle against a millions-strong a...continued
5 minutes read
Casper
@Casper -
6 months ago
The Body as Machine | History Today
George Balanchine, New York City Ballet, 1960. Neil Libbert/Bridgeman Images.George Balanchine, founder of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), pursued pure abstraction in his choreography, emphasising the physical virtuosity of his dancers by foregoing narrative and theatric...continued
3 minutes read
Dayton
@Dayton -
6 months ago
Classical Dinosaur | History Today
Bust of Marcus Licinius Crassus, fifth century AD. Bridgeman Images.Shakespeare gave us an abiding image of Caesar. Pompey promoted himself as the second coming of Alexander the Great. But when it comes to the mysterious third man who pulled the strings and turned the gea...continued
4 minutes read