History

Anything to do with History

Wilmer @Wilmer - over 3 years ago

How Great was Alfred? | History Today

Alfred the Great’s statue in Wantage, by Count Gleichen, 1877. Peter Sykes/Alamy.The best way to get people excited about a nation’s founding father is, of course, to make him the subject of a musical. In August 1740 Frederick, Prince of Wales, son and heir apparent of Ge...continued

1 minute read

Hank @Hank - over 2 years ago

Prince Darab’s Lost Treasure | History Today

Ahmad Shah Durrani, father of Prince Darab, Mughal School, 1757. CPA Media Co. Ltd/TopFoto.At sunset on 14 November 1812, off the coast of what is now Pakistan, four boats, led by the British East India Company cruiser Zephyr, made their way to the small port of Karachi....continued

1 minute read

Rahsaan @Rahsaan - over 2 years ago

The Falklands under Fire | History Today

A bomb explodes on board the HMS Antelope, killing an engineer trying to defuse it, 24 May 1982. PA Images/Alamy.On 2 April 1982 Argentinian forces invaded the Falkland Islands. It was a surprise move, the latest twist in a centuries-old dispute over sovereignty. A day la...continued

1 minute read

Meggie @Meggie - about 2 years ago

Tutankhamun in the Flesh | History Today

The ‘mannequin’ of Tutankhamun. akg-images.The summer of 1923 gave newspaper readers a break from the press circus surrounding the tomb of Tutankhamun, the discovery of which just a few months earlier had grabbed the world’s attention. But an anonymous editorial in the Ha...continued

1 minute read

Abbie @Abbie - about 4 years ago

The Rock of the English Kingdom

Margaret of Anjou in a dungeon with a demon. French, 15th century. By permission of the Governors of Stonyhurst College © Bridgeman Images. The coastal fortress of Bamburgh in the far north-east of England was suddenly overrun by soldiers on 25 October 1462. English, Fr...continued

1 minute read

Jeffrey @Jeffrey - over 2 years ago

When the World Came to Shanghai

Buck Clayton, c.1930. Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy.I reached the international city of Shanghai in July [1933], with the sun beating down on the Bund, the harbor full of Chinese junks, foreign liners and warships from all over the world. It was hot as blazes. I di...continued

1 minute read

Devin @Devin - over 3 years ago

Napoleon: Two Centuries of Life after Death

Napoleon on his Deathbed on St Helena, by Denzil O. Ibbetson, 1821.The French press announced the following on 7 July 1821:We received the English papers of the 4th of this month by special dispatch … This is how the Courrier gives the news: ‘Buonaparte is no more: he die...continued

1 minute read

Emmie @Emmie - over 3 years ago

The Poet as Daemon | History Today

Joseph Mede, one of John Milton’s tutors at Christ’s College, Cambridge, thought that Calvinists who believed in the doctrine of absolute reprobation were themselves fixed in strong opinions and so ‘according to their own Tempers made a judgement of God and his Decrees’. ...continued

7 minutes read

Monserrat @Monserrat - over 2 years ago

The Long Shadow of the First Crusade

Charles V of France and Emperor Charles IV feast while the Siege of Jerusalem is re-enacted, from the Grandes Chroniques de France, c.1380. Alain Le Toquin/akg-images.Called by Pope Urban II in Clermont in 1095 with the aim of taking Jerusalem and other Holy sites from ...continued

1 minute read

Elvie @Elvie - over 2 years ago

The Normans in Byzantium | History Today

Mosaic of Constantine IX Monomachos, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. Agefotostock/Alamy.In 1074 the population of Constantinople looked on aghast as the town of Chrysopolis (modern Üsküdar), just across the Bosporus, was put to the torch. The Byzantine Empire had been through a g...continued

1 minute read

Mariano @Mariano - almost 5 years ago

Fake News and the End of the World

On 10 August 1919 the Washington Herald ran the headline: ‘Planets Moving Into Huge Danger Zone; Earth Will Stagger From Mighty Shock’. In four months, warned Albert F. Porta, an Italian-born academic, seven planets would assemble on one side of the sun. Their collective ...continued

1 minute read

Oren @Oren - over 4 years ago

A War of Words | History Today

The line ‘a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes’ seems more apt than ever before in today’s world of mass media. ‘Fake news’ has become a term used to describe the creation and spread of false information to deceive, for t...continued

1 minute read

Manley @Manley - about 4 years ago

The Crown Lost at Sea

From Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle of England, early 14th century © Bridgeman Images. This year marks the 900th anniversary of the worst maritime disaster suffered by the English Crown and, arguably, by England. The tragedy of the White Ship, which sank on 25 November 1120...continued

1 minute read

Emmie @Emmie - about 4 years ago

The Goths Take Rome | History Today

Roman warrior holding the head of an enemy between his teeth, cast from Trajan’s Column, 1862 © Luisa Ricciarini/Bridgeman Images. During a welcome period of Mediterranean peace in AD 8, a swift judgment from Rome’s first emperor sent the Latin poet Ovid into exile: it ...continued

1 minute read

Devin @Devin - over 2 years ago

The Man Who Was Briefly King

Marie-Charles David de Mayréna, King Marie I of the Sedang, from Le Journal Illustré, 1889. Courtesy of the Kingsley Collection of Self-Proclaimed Monarchies.The high noon of colonialism in the late 19th century created opportunities for European-born adventurers to set t...continued

1 minute read

Marie @Marie - over 2 years ago

The Clown that Went out of Fashion

Elizabethan clown Will Kemp dancing a jig from London to Norwich, 1600. World History Archive/TopFoto.In the spring of 1599 London’s most famous clown left his job at the Globe Theatre. Whether this was a result of animosity between him and William Shakespeare, the compan...continued

1 minute read

Adelia @Adelia - almost 3 years ago

The French Connection | History Today

Charles I and Henrietta Maria, by Daniel Mytens, c.1630-32. Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2021/Bridgeman Images.The foreign policy pursued by Charles I in the 1630s had one objective in mind: the recovery of the Rhineland Palatinate for his neph...continued

1 minute read

Elaina @Elaina - over 2 years ago

The Great Tom Fuller | History Today

Thomas Fuller, 17th century. GRANGER/Alamy.Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said that two writers above all others excited in him ‘the sense and emotion of the marvellous’. One was William Shakespeare and the other was a 17th-century historian called Thomas Fuller. ‘The Great...continued

1 minute read

Leda @Leda - about 3 years ago

How Poland Found Itself in the Mountains

Guide and Tourists in the Tatras (detail), by Walery Eljasz Radzikowski, 1878. National Museum of Kraków/Wikimedia/Creative Commons.The Tatras are the most striking part of the Carpathian mountains that arc through Central and Eastern Europe. With over 60 peaks higher tha...continued

1 minute read

Iva @Iva - about 3 years ago

How Poland Found itself in the Mountains

1 minute read

Clarissa @Clarissa - about 3 years ago

Zoroastrian Zeligs | History Today

Picture this: a firm handshake between a suited tycoon, one of India’s biggest, and a kurta-clad satrap, ruler of the Republic’s largest communist enclave, a blue company logo prominently displayed on the rostrum, the backdrop otherwise a sea of red flags. Ratan Tata, the...continued

7 minutes read

Devin @Devin - 6 months ago

Inventing Cyrillic | History Today

Used by over 250 million people across the Balkans, Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic, Central Asia and as far as Mongolia, the Cyrillic alphabet, almost unique among the world’s alphabets, has its own holiday. Celebrated across the Slavonic-speaking states, the International D...continued

6 minutes read

Marlon @Marlon - almost 3 years ago

Jerusalem Burning | History Today

Frieze panel showing triumphant Romans carrying the seven-branched menorah from the Temple of Jerusalem from the Arch of Titus, Rome © Werner Forman Archive/Getty Images.The Roman general Titus was napping when the news came. His soldiers were inside the walls of the Temp...continued

1 minute read

Nestor @Nestor - over 3 years ago

The Nazis Enter History | History Today

Adolf Hitler attends the Nazi harvest festival held at Bückeberg in central Germany, 1934 © Hulton Getty Images.Major historical events often change how we view others. It is sometimes said that Napoleon was the biggest tyrant Europe had known until Hitler came along. Som...continued

1 minute read

Maureen @Maureen - over 5 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