Early Modern (16th-18thC)

On August 6th, 1962, Jamaica became independent after being a British colony for 300 years. James Robertson explains how Cromwell's plans for war with Spain in the Caribbean resulted in an English conquest of Jamaica. 

‘Have the authors of a two-penny weekly journal, a right to make a national inquiry'? 18th-century governments thought not and neither did the newspapers’ readers of the time.

Queen Anne ordered a racecourse to be built on Ascot Heath in 1711. It was officially opened on August 11th.

Mary Queen of Scots left Calais for Scotland on August 14th, 1561, aged 18 years old.

Though superb works of art in themselves, the wildlife paintings of Francis Barlow are full of rich metaphors that shed light on the anxieties and concerns of a Britain emerging from the horrors of civil war, says Nathan Flis.

For much of the British Civil Wars the colony of Barbados remained neutral, allowing both Parliamentarian and Royalist exiles to run their plantations and trade side by side. But with the collapse of the king’s cause in the late 1640s matters took a violent turn, as Matthew Parker relates.

Richard Cavendish explains how Europe's earliest modern-style banknotes were introduced by the Bank of Stockholm in the 17th century.

Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros explores the life and work of Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, one of the less fortunate and most cantankerous polymaths of the Italian Renaissance.

On June 2nd 1619, a treaty was signed between England and Holland, regulating trade in the East between the English and Dutch East India Companies. Huw V. Bowen asks whether the Company was one of the ‘most powerful engines’ of state and empire in British history.

George I was born on May 28th, 1660. Richard Cavendish provides an overview of his life.

Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros considers the works of three authors who, during the religious fervour of 16th-century Europe, moved away from the Church and wrote about magic.

Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros explores the work and influence of William Allen, who fought to restore Roman Catholicism to England during the reign of Elizabeth I.

One of the last popes to play a major role in international affairs, Innocent XI defied Louis XIV, the Sun King, and played a decisive part in the defence of Christianity against the spread of Islam under the auspices of the Ottoman empire, as Graham Darby explains.