Spain

The British Battalion of the International Brigades, formed to defend the Spanish Republic against the forces of General Franco, first went into battle at Jarama in February 1937. It was the beginning of a bruising, often dispiriting campaign, as Christopher Farman explains.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck looks at the long history of plant dispersal between the New World and the Old.

The Spanish Civil War began on July 18th, 1936, with an army revolt led by Franco. Here, Michael Alpert charts the ebb and flow of battle between Republicans and Nationalists throughout the conflict.

On April 26th 1937, the Spanish town of Guernica was almost destroyed by German bombers. In this article from our 2007 archive, Paul Preston remembers the journalist and Basque sympathizer who broke the news of the bombing of Guernica.

Richard Cavendish describes the Battle of Albuera, on May 16th, 1811.

Continuing our Treasures from the London Library series, Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros explores views of love in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The death-obsessed and inward-looking Aztec civilisation sowed the seeds of its own destruction, argues Tim Stanley.

Hugh Thomas tells Paul Lay about his unparalleled research into the lives of the extraordinary generation of men who conquered the New World for Golden Age Spain.

Court fashion, a love of birdsong and the pressures of being a king are some of the subjects discussed in letters between Philip II of Spain and his teenage daughters. Janet Ravenscroft explores the human side of one of Europe’s most powerful Renaissance monarchs.

Patrick Williams provides us with the results of the latest research on the Armada

Nick Pelling suggests that credit should go not to the Netherlands but much further south to Catalonia.

The last 150 years have seen a chequered but eventually triumphant reintegration of Jews into a society whose heritage they helped to mould, says C.C. Aronsfeld