History

Anything to do with History

C1e15b7459468dc79542fc656b7a9fa2 Madalyn @Madalyn - 19 days ago
‘Patria’ by Laurence Blair review
Aside from the Falklands War, and perhaps the Spanish conquest, Brits, in general, know very little about the history of South America. It’s an oversight that persists despite the continent’s influence on Britain, from guano – the bird dung fertiliser that powered the lat...continued
5 minutes read
8bc9d6e15b3458e41c925e171d8de6d8 Jany @Jany - almost 4 years ago
To Frame a Painter | History Today
De László in his London studio, 1937, de László Archive © de László Foundation. By kind permission of The de László Archive Trust: www.delaszlocatalogueraisonne.com The ‘spy fever’ generated by the First World War placed many of Europe’s immigrant communities under suspic...continued
 Delaszlo 5
1 minute read
1bd665cfdc2ebddfa4e39c96971aafdf Elian @Elian - over 3 years ago
Stakhanovite Shopping | History Today
On 3 August 1935 Aleksei Stakhanov mined a record-breaking 102 tonnes of coal in six hours. He became an overnight celebrity. Towns were renamed in his honour, his face graced the covers of international magazines, including Time, and a movement was created in his name: S...continued
6 minutes read
70753e5e348bf454161ee0bcc63fed8d Juliet @Juliet - about 2 years ago
Filthy Food | History Today
Milk is watered down and sand is added to sugar, detail from an engraving of ‘London improvements’, 1845. Mary Evans Picture Library.Adulteration of food with potentially harmful substances and cheap substitutes is an old problem with a recent solution. In the 19th centur...continued
 Filthy food
1 minute read
34392094b518c79e322481ceb0004cbf Colin @Colin - about 3 years ago
Armenia’s Warrior Queen | History Today
During the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, the Republic of Armenia established its first all-women military detachment. This was the latest in a series of developments that won women the right to serve in the Armenian armed forces since military academies first opened their do...continued
6 minutes read
1a4d3a462311ba36d913731c2e16402c Pablo @Pablo - about 1 month ago
Robert Fergusson: Scotia’s Bard | History Today
On 17 October 1774 the Scots poet Robert Fergusson died. Fergusson’s achievements are often overshadowed by his early death: at 24, following a brain injury and a spell in Edinburgh’s Bedlam asylum. His legacy has also been complicated by Robert Burns, who referred to Fer...continued
6 minutes read
3fb9059c39d0a39c0a9f0cf17b7858fc Priscilla @Priscilla - 7 months ago
Nottinghamshire’s Bitter 1593 Election | History Today
In 1593 the threat of Spanish invasion was still rife, even five years after the failed Armada. Queen Elizabeth required money to cover the expenses of defending England and a Parliament was called. The 1593 election to choose the two MPs who would represent Nottinghamshi...continued
6 minutes read
7caeec7c88c24f5d4f9a4c169eb9f70c Maureen @Maureen - about 3 years ago
Think of the Children! | History Today
‘Obscenity’, writes Christopher Hilliard in this fascinating study of censorship in modern Britain, has often been ‘a definition that does not do much defining’. The question of what is fit to be seen, and what is deemed unacceptable, has depended far more upon audiences ...continued
6 minutes read
2cb2f1cf49e001b23749fba977acd24a Casper @Casper - over 3 years ago
Baby Boom or Bust? | History Today
When the pandemic sent the world into lockdown in March 2020, many commentators quipped that a mini baby boom would follow nine months later. The reality was entirely different. Financial insecurity, increased parental responsibilities and anxiety about the future, along ...continued
6 minutes read
2f3192374c3e88221a336dc5d319c4a3 Zetta @Zetta - over 2 years ago
Law of the Land | History Today
Nigel Farage’s Bayeux Tapestry tie, 20 November 2014 © REUTERS/Alamy.On 24 September 2019 the Supreme Court handed down a judgment on the recent prorogation of Parliament – more accurately, its purported prorogation, because the judgment pronounced the attempt to prorogue...continued
 Constitution
1 minute read
Abe69d7aacc9c6d89b2d1ff5e9ac6ef4 Hank @Hank - almost 4 years ago
The Original Anti-Vaxxers | History Today
Anti-vaccination protests are nothing new, although in the past they did have some justification. When Edward Jenner introduced smallpox inoculation at the end of the 18th century he was widely derided as yet another quack trying to make a quick fortune. Envious rivals we...continued
6 minutes read
041490c94bd26a3efdf85d49d9b013ba Alexie @Alexie - about 3 years ago
The Doctor Is In | History Today
The British love the National Health Service. In early 2020, people emerged from their homes every Thursday evening to applaud healthcare workers and show support for this treasured national institution. While the strength of feeling might have grown during the pandemic, ...continued
6 minutes read
69ab36bf73ce82cc3579c8f2504f3bac Gregoria @Gregoria - almost 2 years 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
 Opium
1 minute read
A83b4d2292ad0135445fc0a7644d14c3 Joe @Joe - about 3 years ago
Kings of the Pacific in an Age of Revolution
Tongan men with canoes, French 19th-century engraving © Bridgeman Images.It was October 1793. Four days had passed and there was still no news of the naval officer, Count de Trobriand. The French ships Recherche and Espérance lay moored impatiently 25 miles outside the Du...continued
 Pacific
1 minute read
30ac4bba47a0498502bf602bad16409a Meggie @Meggie - almost 4 years ago
On the Wrong Side of History
Mrs Humphry Ward (Mary Ward), by Herbert Rose Barraud, 19th century © Bridgeman Images. In February 1912 a capacity crowd of 9,000 filled London’s Royal Albert Hall, which had been decorated for the occasion in the black, white and pink colours of their cause. Some 20,0...continued
 Maryward
1 minute read
367ec04c80b95de4cfdf036599b35350 Garnet @Garnet - over 3 years ago
The Year of the Sepoy Revolt
As Abraham Lincoln noted, the United States in the years leading up to the Civil War was a ‘house divided against itself’. This disunion is often generalised as a fracture between North and South. But, before secession, the growing divide was between determined abolitioni...continued
6 minutes read
725ac8c62bcc32f06195cf20b372a31a Muriel @Muriel - 3 months ago
The Women who Forged Medieval England
The forge of the Tower of London was constantly ablaze in summer 1346. England was at war with France, so, in addition to the Tower’s usual function as mint and prison, the royal fortress now served as a giant military hub, collating supplies of iron, timber and – most im...continued
6 minutes read
56a34dc91390858efd1999c86a89c348 George @George - over 3 years ago
Sheppard’s Warning | History Today
On 16 November 1724 Jack Sheppard was hanged at Tyburn. Where Marble Arch now stands, thousands witnessed the 22-year-old Londoner’s agonising end as plans to save him dissolved in chaos. While Sheppard’s brief career in burglary had not been especially notable, by the ti...continued
6 minutes read
B9fae85d63d3cf084c4f15cdbd0ccaba Giles @Giles - 5 months ago
Shakespeare’s Sister Speaks | History Today
In her 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf asked her reader to conduct a thought experiment: Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister …Woolf explores the subtly cumulative ways i...continued
6 minutes read
E156d09edb938373e3543d1b385a51d4 Felicita @Felicita - 7 months ago
‘Shakespeare’s Sisters’ by Ramie Targoff review
Elizabeth I’s funeral procession in April 1603 was lavish and long, the extravagant bier topped with a wax effigy of the queen in red wig, crown and all. Thousands watched the procession as it moved from Whitehall to Westminster, and within or around it were four female w...continued
6 minutes read
24490084fc6f12363038e6f513dd8ace Myles @Myles - over 3 years ago
Book of Remembrance | History Today
The legacy of Indigenous Australian service in the First World War has long been overlooked, in part due to wartime policies that initially restricted service to those of ‘substantially European’ descent. Australia had been settled on the legal fiction of terra nullius, w...continued
6 minutes read
Eb0f1753654cff1630386503eeba7c5d Bobby @Bobby - 2 months ago
‘Straight Acting’ by Will Tosh review
Towards the end of Prospero’s Books, Peter Greenaway’s 1991 reimagining of The Tempest, John Gielgud moves through a shifting landscape of half-naked, androgynous bodies. Staring directly at the camera, he gravely intones his final speech as the scene behind him dissolves...continued
5 minutes read
7094e9deddcf03241ed9894017ba09bc Rose @Rose - 4 days ago
A Christmas to Save the Byzantine Empire
On Christmas Day 1400 the English king Henry IV and the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos sat down to their festive dinner at Eltham Palace in southeast England. The embattled emperor had arrived four days earlier, on the final leg of a desperate tour across Europe,...continued
1 minute read
24490084fc6f12363038e6f513dd8ace Myles @Myles - 6 months ago
‘Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans’ by Daniel Cowling review
In 1945, after six years of bitter fighting, Britain found itself tasked with occupying a vast area of Northern Europe stretching from the industrial Ruhr in the south to the port cities of Kiel and Lübeck in the north. This gargantuan operation had to be carried out agai...continued
6 minutes read
125f097c91a427394e6d36ae98c72376 Elaina @Elaina - 11 months ago
Preston’s Banana Boat Stowaways | History Today
In March 1960 the Daily Telegraph revealed that 250 stowaways from the Caribbean had entered Preston dock in the past two years. ‘Shipowners seek tighter checks & bigger penalties’, read the headline. The stowaways were chiefly British citizens from Dominica, who made...continued
6 minutes read