Feature

Secret World of the Maya

The earliest European explorers to encounter ruins of the Maya civilisation could not believe it owed its creation to Indigenous Americans. How did they come to believe otherwise?

Russia’s California Colony

The Russians were among the first Europeans to sense California's potential. Had they not sold their settlement there in 1841, the world could have been a different place.

Lettow-Vorbeck: The Uncatchable Lizard?

The German First World War commander Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck has been described as the 20th century’s greatest guerrilla leader for his undefeated campaign in East Africa. Is the legend justified? 

Drake’s Progress

For all its faults C.E Hamshere’s account of Francis Drake’s 16th-century circumnavigation, published in History Today in 1967, applies a historical imagination lacking in more recent studies, argues Hugh Bicheno.