Volume 57 Issue 3 March 2007

John F. Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the Moon in the 1960s is remembered as a utopian vision. In reality, it was a purely political project that he soon came to regret.

How did Washington Post cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman – with a little help from Theodore Roosevelt – spark the creation of the world’s favourite soft toy?

Dan Snow, who has explored historic battles on television with his father Peter, tells Peter Furtado about the rich collection of stories surrounding his family over the last century.

Britain’s first Anti-Slavery Act was ineffective, says Marika Sherwood – British slave traders found ways around it to carry on their profitable activities, while British commerce flourished through the import of slave-grown cotton.

During the Seven Years War, Admiral Byng was charged with 'failing to do his utmost'. He was executed on board the Monarch on March 14th, 1757.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of March 4th, 1857

Christopher J. Walker asks whether the two religions that frequently appear locked in an inevitable clash of civilizations in fact share more than has often been thought.

Kristian Ulrichsen believes that the politicians and planners behind the 2003 invasion ignored the lessons of the first British occupation of Iraq, which began with the capture of Baghdad from the Ottomans in 1917.

This West African state was a focus of the slave trade for centuries, and the first African colony to win independence, exactly fifty years ago. Graham Gendall Norton finds lots of history to explore.

Philip Morgan explains why Italians have tended to gloss over the period 1940-43, when Mussolini fought against the Allies, preferring to remember the years of German occupation 1943-45.