History
Anything to do with History
Nestor
@Nestor -
over 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
2 minutes read
Cameron
@Cameron -
over 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
2 minutes read
Immanuel
@Immanuel -
almost 5 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
2 minutes read
Giovanni
@Giovanni -
about 5 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 -
about 5 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 -
almost 5 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
2 minutes read
Nelson
@Nelson -
about 5 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
2 minutes read
Rowan
@Rowan -
over 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
2 minutes read
Adelia
@Adelia -
over 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 -
about 1 year 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
2 minutes read
Jarod
@Jarod -
over 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 -
over 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
2 minutes read
Maureen
@Maureen -
over 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
2 minutes read
Marie
@Marie -
over 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
2 minutes read
Nestor
@Nestor -
about 1 year 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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Jerrold
@Jerrold -
almost 5 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
2 minutes read
Elaina
@Elaina -
about 1 year 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
2 minutes read
Alexander
@Alexander -
over 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 -
over 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
2 minutes read
Izaiah
@Izaiah -
over 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
2 minutes read
Jerrold
@Jerrold -
over 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 -
about 5 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 -
over 1 year 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 4 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 -
over 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
2 minutes read