History Today

Prague, under the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, became the centre of the Renaissance world, where cultures mixed and learning flourished.

For much of the 20th century, young working-class women in England found out about procreation the ‘hard way’ or the ‘dirty way’.

The issue of assisted dying was first put before Parliament in 1936. Many of the same questions remain, but the arguments have changed.

Chevaliere d’Eon or Chevalier d’Eon? An 18th-century legal dispute between two French spies unravelled into a public battle about identity.

Caught between the antagonistic states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is stuck in geopolitical limbo. Its location – and its history – threaten to keep it there.

A new book for the new year is an old British custom, but an old book can be even better.

As convicts celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday on remote Norfolk Island, debates raged over the purpose of punishment and the merits of Alexander Maconochie’s project of moral reform.

Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch reminds us that when it comes to sexuality and gender, scripture is often contradictory.

An attempt to prosecute German war criminals in 1921 failed to such an extent that the entire enterprise is largely forgotten. What went wrong?

The remarkable fall of absinthe: from 19th-century ‘Green Fairy’ to scourge of society.