2003

Robin Evans extols the outstanding success of 1588: not the defeat of the Spanish Armada but the publication of the Welsh Bible.

Bernard Porter points out similarities and contrasts between terrorism then and now.

Richard Wilkinson sees obvious faults in a new study of the founder of Methodism.

Denise Silvester-Carr discusses the background to the new exhibition on Art Deco at the V&A Museum.

Alastair Dunn discusses the battle and its repercussions in its 600th anniversary year.

Martin Petchey outlines a proposed new scheme by the government to protect our heritage.

Richard Carwardine describes the new library dedicated to Abraham Lincoln.

John Hannavy investigates the perennially fascinating ‘pit brow lasses’.

To accompany the major exhibition opening at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Janet Backhouse explores the varied roles of patronage in the art of the later Middle...

Jerry Brookshire shows that the ‘special relationship’ in 1945-51 was in safe, and curiously similar, hands.

Peter Furtado announces the winners of the Longman-History Today Awards 2003.

David Irwin chronicles how the imagery of the natural world entwined itself luxuriantly in the visual arts of the 1890s.

David Williamson explains why events in Berlin twice threatened to unleash a third world war.

Peter Furtado provides an insight into the life and career of Max Beckmann.

The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, was born on June 17th, 1703. Richard Cavendish charts his early life.

April 29th, 1803

Randal Keynes explores a new book on the hugely influential 19th-century scientist.

Paul Dukes looks at the ups and downs of the relationship between the land of the lions and that of the double-headed eagle.

Martyn Bennett has enjoyed a gargantuan study on 17th-century Britain.

Graham Goodlad advises on how to prepare for examination questions on a key area.

Anthony Cross describes the introduction of British games to Russia.

Robert Knecht looks at the ‘eminence rouge’ and considers how his image, carefully crafted during his lifetime, has become that of a demonic schemer.

Anthony Reid traces some surprising precedents for the many recent women rulers in South and Southeast Asia.

Richard Fletcher asks to what extent medieval Christians and Muslims sought to move beyond mutual hostility.

John Morrill remembers and assesses the Marxist historian of the English Revolution, who died recently.

Geoffrey Best considers two new titles on the great leader.

Robert Pearce examines a new work on the English statesman and the end of his career as a peacemaker.

To what extent did Christians support Hitler, and for what reasons? Will Saunders investigates.

Following the publication of The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, Defoe was accused of seditious libel and put in the pillory on the last three days of...

April 4th, 1953

May 24th, 1153

The creator of Saudi Arabia died on November 9th, 1953. In his last years he was one of the richest men on earth.

The Soviet leader died on March 5th, 1953.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of March 3rd, 1703.

Samuel Pepys died on May 26th, 1703, aged 70. Richard Cavendish describes how he rose from his humble origins to become secretary of the Admiralty, a member of...

Russel Tarr demonstrates how today’s technology can enliven teaching and learning about the past.

Joanna Green profiles a new project in association with the Museum of London, that provides a showcase for the history of London’s docklands.

After the First World War a new Europe of independent states was created from the ruins of the old empires. By 1956 these countries were locked into the Soviet system...

A group of second-year students from Southampton University present the results of a collaborative research project.

Jennie Price celebrates 75 years of the completion of the O.E.D.

Liane Aukin looks at the private life of Florence Nightingale, and at how her strained relationship with her mother shaped her destiny.

Adrian Mourby shows that the nightmare scenario can be both dire warning and escapist fantasy.

Stephen Cretney investigates whether the government colluded in the suppression of evidence that might have prevented Wallis Simpson’s divorce and royal marriage...

Ian W. Archer rounds up the best new Elizabethan titles.

A timeline of dates pertaining to the Tudor queen.

Paula Bartley reappraises the role of the leader of the Suffragettes.

Ian Cawood sees more pluses than minuses in the biography of a pioneer feminist.

Philip Stott examines a book focusing on the links between colonialism, British forestry and environmentalism.

The succession of conflicts known as the Hundred Years War ended on October 19th, 1453, when Bordeaux surrendered, leaving Calais as the last English possession in...

Nicholas Vincent reviews three new titles concerning the history of England from the Norman invasion to conquest of Wales.

Stephen Wilson looks at a new study of the European early modern family.

Philip Mansel explores the City of the Sultans from 1453 onwards, and finds it characterised by a vibrant multi-culturalism until the Ottoman demise of 1922.

Jeremy Black warns against a simplistic characterisation of a complex and diverse period.

Co-curator Sian Flynn introduces Elizabeth: the exhibition commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Queen’s death at the National Maritime Museum, sponsored by...

Peter Monteath recalls what happened when two explorers, whose nations were battling for supremacy, met on the other side of the world.

Ruth Bottigheimer argues that the survival of our best-loved fairy tales owes more to popular print tradition than to fireside story-telling passed down through the...

Daniel Snowman meets the historian of Columbus, Barcelona, the Millennium, Truth, Civilisations, Food and the Americas.

Matthew Stewart discusses Peter Weir's 1981 cinematic tour de force, and what it tells us about the ANZAC myth.

Jonathan Lewis and Hew Strachan point out the daunting challenges and exciting opportunities involved in producing a new major TV series.

Maurice Garin won the first Tour de France, on July 19th, 1903, by a margin of almost three hours.

Peter Furtado introduces the June 2003 issue of History Today which commemorates the 550th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.

John Walton looks at the hidden problems of crowd safety off the pitch in England in the first half of the twentieth century.

As the government prepares to bring casinos to our high streets, John Childs looks at a gambling craze of the 1690s.

May 27th, 1703

Julian Reed-Purvis examines the origins and consequences of Nazi Euthanasia.

Peter Furtado and Vladimir Dolmatov introduce the July 2003 issue of History Today.

Penelope J. Corfield looks at two new works on the 18th century.

Jeremy Black reminds us of the importance of two of Britain’s less well-loved monarchs.

Michael Partridge charts the changing political views of the Grand Old Man of 19th-century British politics.

Roy Beck considers the historical and moral dimensions of the latest attempt to put Jackson, and the American Civil War itself, on the big screen.

Helen Rappaport reviews a work on Soviet prison camps.

Charles Freeman surveys a scholarly study of the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius.

Maurice Keen looks at the significance of female lines of descent in heraldic arms, and what this tells us about women of noble and gentle birth in medieval England...

Richard J.A. Talbert admires a detailed study of the origins and development of historical atlases and maps.

After a period in the doldrums, historical novels have become flavour-of-the-month once again, with new titles on a wide range of periods and approaches. Richard...

Patrick O’Brien reviews history reviewers, finds them wanting and recommends reform.

Peter Furtado reflects on the responses to the Bethlehem 2002 article in the January issue of History Today.

Documentary film-maker Martin Smith calls for makers of history programmes for television to reassess their standards.

Peter Furtado opens the August 2003 issue of History Today.

Peter Furtado reveals recent history book winners.

This spring Lexington, Kentucky, home of American horse-racing, is staging a unique exhibition of some of Britain’s most prized equine artefacts. Tracy Powell...

Assistant Curator Will Palin recalls the labour of love behind the architect and collector Sir John Soane’s efforts to create his home and museum on London’s Lincoln’...

Erica Fudge considers what it meant to be described as an animal in the 16th and 17th centuries, and what divided humans from the rest of creation.

Anne Gorsuch reviews two titles on Russia.

Elliot Richman provides a useful strategy for the ultimate test.

Kevin Sharpe mourns the loss of an historian who wrote and made history.

James Williams considers hunting as the ideal pastime for the nobility in the sixteenth century.

Scot McKendrick introduces a major new exhibition of Flemish manuscript illumination opening at the Royal Academy.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of March 4th, 1853.

The colourful cartoon development of British national symbols provides an acute barometer to changes in 18th- and 19th-century public opinion. By Peter Mellini and...

Robert Pearce introduces the man who has been called ‘the George Washington of Poland’.

Geoffrey Roberts assesses Stalin’s changing reputation, 50 years after his death.

September 14th, 1903

Alan Marshall recounts the tale of the men who tried to assassinate Oliver Cromwell.

Richard Cavendish describes how King Alexander and Queen Draga of Serbia were assassinated during the night of June 10th/11th, 1903.

Anna Chapman considers what lies behind the cult of an East Anglian king killed by the Vikings in 869.

Margarette Lincoln and Colin White debate the significance of a recently discovered cache of letters from Frances Nelson to her husband’s prize agent written at the...

Gilbert Shama looks at the German research into penicillin during the Second World War.

July 10th, 1553

Charles Freeman reviews two new contributions to the world of Byzantine and late antique studies.

Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria was executed on December 23rd, 1953. He was fifty-four, if it was really him.

News and views from History Today readers.

News and views from History Today readers.

The latest comments and insights from the History Today readers

Lev Anninskiy describes his encounters with censored and uncensored history in Soviet Russia.

Alan Farmer is impressed by a valuable edition to the ‘Profiles in Power’ series.

Sir Patrick Cormack, long serving Member of Parliament for South Staffordshire and a passionate advocate of heritage and history, recalls his youthful affection for...

In the 20th article in his quarterly series about today’s historians, Daniel Snowman meets the Renaissance and Shakespeare scholar, historian of science and...

Sheila O’Connell describes one of the key events in the British Museum’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

Forty years after the fatal assassination of JFK, during which time conspiracy theories have flourished, Andrew Cook returns to the idea of the unaided assassin, and...

Roger Owen considers bell’s impact on the much maligned consul-general of Egypt.

An introduction by Bob Scribner to our November series on Martin Luther.

Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy's wedding was celebrated in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 12th, 1953.

Richard Cavendish describes James IV of Scots and Margaret Tudor's wedding on August 8th, 1503.

In researching his ground-breaking new portrait of the man who commanded the Soviet defence to Hitler, Albert Axell spent time in Russia, interviewing people close to...

Michael Mullett defines the Theses' role in the Lutheran Reformation.

Retha Warnicke examines the tumultuous career of Mary, Queen of Scots, before her long incarceration by her cousin Elizabeth I of England.

Kyle Jones unearths the real expense involved in riding to hounds.

Jeremy Black calls for a more wide-ranging, inclusive approach to the history of warfare.

Hugh Miles assesses the significance of the Piltdown hoax.

Roger Price examines the career of Louis-Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his position in French historiography.

David Lowenthal explores natural history enthusiasms among Victorian Britons and Americans, and finds an explanation for their differing approaches to conservation....

Ian Thatcher argues that surface similarities between the regimes of Hitler and Stalin disguise deep-seated differences.

Robert Carr draws uncomfortable parallels between Christianity and Nazism.

Edgar Vincent analyses the spectacularly successful, and surprisingly modern, leadership strategy of Horatio Nelson.

Peter Furtado on the appointment of a new Director of the Institute of Historical Research.

We review a selection of books newly available in paperback.

Peter Furtado introduces our special issue on Elizabeth I.

Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence look at what it meant to become a senior citizen in ancient Rome, and how this early model has a bearing on our attitudes towards ageing...

David L Smith explains why Cromwell so signally failed to establish harmony with his Parliaments.

In the final article in our series on Britain and Russia, Stuart Thompstone visits the long-lasting community of Britons in the Russian capital.

Adrian Mourby reviews three new works connecting music and politics.

Daniel Snowman meets the historian of the Russian Revolution and of Russian culture.

Jad Adams traces the momentous and paradoxical consquences of a failed assassination attempt.

Gordon Marsden sees an identity of outlook between two writers generally seen as occupying opposite ends of the political spectrum in Britain.

Daniel Snowman assesses a new book looking at ‘modernism’ and ‘postmodernism’.

Robert Pearce rounds up the latest in paperback publishing.

Kari Konkola and Diarmaid MacCulloch use the evidence of book publishing to contribute to the debate about how widely the English Reformation affected ordinary men...

Richard Cavendish explores the papacy of Pius X, who was elected on August 4th, 1903.

Matthew Howells introduces History Compass, a new concept in history publishing.

Christopher Dyer looks at two contrasting books on the beginnings of capitalism

Simon Sebag Montefiore describes an unlikely project to create an English village in Belorussia involving Catherine the Great’s lover and the philosopher Jeremy...

John Guy, author of a new biography of Mary, Queen of Scots, explains how working in the archives made him fascinated with sixteenth-century history.

Editor Peter Furtado looks at major prizes in history.

Professional football was legalized in Britain in 1885. However, crowd safety remained an important issue during the first half of the 20th century. Here John...

Natasha McEnroe shows that a new exhibition provides insights into both medical and sexual practices in the eighteenth century.

Tarnya Cooper looks at the wider iconography of Elizabeth, and how this evolved during her reign.

Kerry Ellis recalls the remarkable career of the Englishwoman who saw it as her destiny to establish a pro-British monarchy in Iraq.

Andrew Cook compares notes from Soviet sources and recently released MI5 files on Klaus Fuchs, the British nuclear physicist and spy who helped the Soviet Union...

Jonathan Conlin considers the history of heritage panics, from relics to Raphaels.

Denise Silvester-Carr visits the house that proved an inspiration to many in the Arts and Crafts movement, and which opens to the public on July 16th.

What led Li Zhengsheng, a Chinese newspaper photographer, to preserve vivid images of the Cultural Revolution, even at enormous personal risk?

John Gardiner studies a new book on the 1832 Reform Act.

Christopher Follett describes the St George restoration project.

Daniel Snowman meets the historian of Germany, defender of history and expert witness in the Irving trial.

Marianne Elliott examines the facts and the myth of the unlikely Irish nationalist hero who vowed his ‘tomb remain uninscribed until my country takes her place among...

Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, died on October 9th, 1253, at his favourite manor house at Buckden in Huntingdonshire.

Charlotte Crow glimpses the British Museum’s new exhibition of its own original collections in the great King’s Library.

Victor Gray, Director of the Rothschild Archive, introduces a new website that will prove a invaluable resource for all students of economic, and social history, and...

Christopher Haigh considers the man behind the mesmerising image of Elizabethan England, and his relevance today.

Martin McCauley reviews two new books exploring the historical vicissitudes of Soviet Russia.

Paul Dukes reviews a study of the Joint Services School for Linguists, set up during the Cold War to aid UK intelligence operations.

Christopher Storrs on a book by Henry Kamen which recreates imperial Spain.

Ian Hargreaves traces the origins, and deplores the impact, of the unholy alliance between public relations and politics, business and journalism.

Tom Bowers rounds up the best in history publishing for Spring 2003.

Sergei Kudryahov reviews two titles on the Soviet Union and its leadership struggles.

Mark Steel, stand-up comedian and presenter of history on television and radio, describes how punk rock helped politicise a generation, and whet his own appetite for...

David Starkey introduces our special issue, and the Greenwich exhibition.

August 31st, 1803

Samantha Mattila reports on the discovery of valuable new additions to Sydney’s rock art.

A.D. Harvey examines two histories of the remarkable story of flight.

Peter Furtado introduces the December 2003 issue of History Today.

Alison Weir, best-selling historian of the medieval and sixteenth-century royal families, explains how she first encountered the power of history in a strange feeling...

Charles Plouviez reviews a book by Becky E. Conekin

The East India Company's army led by Arthur Wellesley defeated the Mahrattas at the Battle of Assaye on September 23rd, 1803.

Richard Cavendish describes the Battle of Civitate.

Charles Loft argues that Dr Beeching, hatchet-man of the railways in 1963, has been unfairly blamed for the decisions of politicians.

November 16th, 1903

Andrew Smyth recalls the vision and enterprise of one of Louis XIV’s chief ministers and a Béziers businessman.

The House of Trade was set up in Seville on January 20th, 1503, granting the city the exclusive right to trade with the New World.

Stephen K. Roberts traces the development and examines the legacy of a unique educational institution.

Sarah Searight tells how the efforts of the little-known Robert Moresby, together with the innovation of the marine steam engine, revolutionised trade and transport...

Peter Furtado looks at a new guide published to coincide with the tercentenary of the founding of St Petersburg.

Martyn Bennett welcomes a new study of the first Stuart to occupy the English throne.

Bernard Hamilton scrutinises two pertinent titles on the relationship between Christianity and Islam throughout the ages.

Francis Beckett looks at the struggle for cultural supremacy and Cold War propaganda.

Nigel Saul examines two new theories surrounding the demise of the Plantagenet king.

February 11th, 1503

The man who gave his name to the notorious killing machine died on February 26th, 1903

Robert Dunning reviews a re-issued Domesday package.

Michael Lynch takes a fresh look at the key reform of 19th-century Russia.

Christopher Black burrows into the world of the Renaissance and takes a look at three new studies of this formative period in European history.

Joshua Shotton defends a much-maligned statesman.

Martin Evans examines a recent publication on the French experiences in 1940 when the Nazis crushed all in their wake.

The taking of Kano by the West African Frontier Force, on February 3rd 1903, signalled the end of the Muslim fundamentalist Fulani empire in northern Nigeria....

Orla Finnegan and Ian Cawood show that the reasons for Parnell’s fall in 1890 are not as straightforward as they may appear at first sight.

Jeremy Black on a new acccount of the French Revolution, highly commended by the judges in the Longman-History Today Book of the Year 2003 category.

Emily Burns introduces a new weekend event run by English Heritage to bring history – particularly living history in many and varied forms, reaching well beyond the...

April 21st, 753 BC

Merle Ricklefs seeks clues for the future of the troubled archipelago nation in its distant past.

It was the Gadsden Purchase on December 30th, 1853, that settled the main boundaries of the USA.

Gabriel Fawcett investigates how the Germans commemorate the losses they sustained in the First and Second World Wars.

Mike Cronin and Richard Holt discover the roots of international sport in France.

Alister McGrath on heavenly visions throughout the ages.

Elizabeth A. Fenn examines a little known catastrophe that reshaped the history of a continent.

The week-long hurricane that struck the south of England and the English Channel on November 24th, 1703, was beyond anything in living memory.

Lawrence Paterson tells the story behind a new book of rare photographs published this month detailing life aboard a German Second World War submarine.

Jeremy Black reviews a thoughtful account of human development and world history

Charles Townshend reviews three new contributions to the historiography of the Troubles.

Tim Cole reviews two new titles looking at how the Holocaust has been represented and remembered.

In the first of our new series of brief biographical sketches, Peter Neville defends Britain's ambassador in Berlin during the years before the Second World War....

Jeremy Black recommends an intriguing account of the origins of the metric system.

Graham Goodlad asks if the media did more to support or to challenge politicians during the last century.

Christine Riding looks at British reaction to the French tragedy at sea immortalised in Géricault’s masterpiece 'The Raft of the Medusa'.

David Lowenthal on a challenging title which tackles the history of ideas about ideas.

December 27th, 1703

Bevis Hillier investigates the alleged abduction 250 years ago, of a young servant girl, which divided London society at the time and has puzzled historians ever...

Paul Wingrove examines the starkly different interpretations that seek to explain the career of Joseph Stalin, who died fifty years ago this month.

Colin Cook looks at the political, philosophical and cultural impact of the idea of aviation in the first half of the 20th century.

Daniel Snowman looks at three titles which tackle contemporary historical practice.

Robert Pearce reviews the latest study of an important topic.

William D. Rubinstein reviews this new contribution to the debate surrounding the outbreak of the First World War.

Juliet Gardiner investigates two new books on wartime society in Britain during the Second World War.

Russel Tarr considers key issues from the life of the famous Cardinal.

Susanna Shadrake on two welcome additions to the study of Roman military history.

Patrick Dillon identifies the mid-18th century as a watershed in ideas about reforming society.

Alison Sim discusses the practicalities of running Elizabeth’s court.

Roman Golicz looks at English attitudes to Russia during the Eastern Crisis of 1870-78.

Godfrey Hodgson tells of a little-known episode in which an unofficial American diplomat attempted to redraw the political map in the summer of 1914, bringing peace...

Corinne Atkins examines the events in Iraq in the 7th century AD, which precipitated the first and only great division of Islam, the ramifications of which are...

How many miraculous recoveries from castration and blinding were there in thirteenth-century England? Paul Hyams investigates the conjunction of the cure with the...

 Robert Morrell presents the UK-based society which seeks to celebrate Thomas Paine.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of January 31st, 1504

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto reviews a new title on the topical and under-represented subject of Environmental History.

Frank Shapiro investigates the options open to Jews who wanted to leave Nazi Germany prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, and considers why one possible...

John M. MacKenzie reviews two new books on the Victorian era.

Lord Harmsworth tells how an accident of birth resulted in his running Dr Johnson’s House in London.

Josip Broz, known as Tito since the 1930s, was elected President of the Federal Assembly of Yugoslavia on January 13th, 1953.

Ian Campbell Bradley observes how the creation of the town of Saltaire exemplified the works of Victorian industrialists – philanthropy with an eye to profit.

Nicky McHugh describes recent developments in Hartford, Connecticut, at the home of Mark Twain for those seeking a close encounter with America’s literary past.

A new exhibition opening at the British Museum this month spotlights some of the finest trophies of British archaeology, as well as the people who found them....

These days, every other history book seems to be called ‘the person/journey/discovery/product that changed the world’. How new are they? How much do these books...

Jeremy Ashbee, from the Historic Royal Palaces, discusses a new programme at the Tower of London on punishment and imprisonment.

Peter Furtado previews a new exhibition devoted to J.M.W. Turner’s visits to the historic city in the first half of the 19th century.

Peter Furtado looks at the need for urgent action and a major conference to save Venice from flooding.

Peter Ling analyses Martin Luther King's involvement with non-violent protest in the USA. 

Martyn Bennett examines how the terminology we use about the great conflict of the mid-seventeenth century reflects and reinforces the interpretations we make....

Peter Furtado on the new National Awards for History Teaching in Higher Education.

Jon Cook identifies the mix of factors that helps explain the Florentine Renaissance.

Andrew Mendelsohn outlines the attractions of a fast-growing an popular field of study.

Phil Reed, the Director of the Cabinet War Rooms, explains the significance of the new suite of rooms being opened to the public on April 8th.

Penny Ritchie Calder of the Imperial War Museum introduces a major new exhibition for this autumn.

David Jordan recalls the career of the man Brazilians claim to have been the true pioneer of powered heavier-than-air flight.

F.G. Stapleton examines the role played by the armed forces in the government of the Second Reich.