In December 1922 a proclamation signed by George V formally established the Irish Free State. Among loyalists in three border counties of Ulster, partitioned and cut adrift from unionist jurisdiction, the sense of betrayal was acute.
The medieval period was a golden age of saints and miracles, but they were met with a healthy dose of scepticism.
Fighting for the Union in the US Civil War, Welsh soldiers discovered that the cost of assimilation was the loss of their native language.
To Renaissance audiences, the mythical Amazons were exotic, mysterious and revealed hidden truths about their own society.
For the Swedish king Charles X Gustav, the freezing winter of 1658 provided a unique opportunity: to march across the ice and create a Scandinavian superkingdom.
As the accession of Edward VII shows, a new British monarch must represent the nation’s values – whatever that nation and those values are.
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 reopened arguments about the presumed race of the ancient Egyptians.
After the death of her husband in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt left the White House and embarked upon a new career as ‘First Lady of the World’.
Brazilian democracy is young, hard-won and under threat. As the country goes to the polls, its history reminds us that the right to vote is not a given.
Efforts by the German scientist Friedrich Accum brought about widespread awareness of the dangers of food adulteration, paving the way for legislation that protects what we eat today.
