How the Miners’ Strike Was Lost
Was Margaret Thatcher’s government close to defeat during the dark days of the miners’ strike of 1984-85?
Feature
Why the Light Brigade Charged
The fatalist view of the Light Brigade’s charge towards the Russian guns at Balaclava is being challenged. They had their reasons why.
Coming to Terms with the Past: Northern Ireland
Richard English argues that historians have a practical and constructive role to play in today’s Ulster.
History With the Boring Bits Put Back
Terry Jones, former Python, describes how a perverse fascination with the boring bits of Chaucer converted him from being a clown into a historian of the 14th century.
The Meaning of Magna Carta since 1215
Ralph V. Turner considers how and why Magna Carta became a beacon of liberty in Britain and, increasingly, in the United States.
Britons in the Great Fire of Moscow
Some British and Irish-born Muscovites waited out Napoleon’s invasion of 1812, surviving both the French army and the five-day inferno.
Cardinal Richelieu: Hero or Villain?
The image of Cardinal Richelieu, carefully crafted during his lifetime, soon became that of a demonic schemer. How?
Sewing Machines: Liberation or Drudgery for Women?
With its effects felt on both the household and workplace over the 19th century, the invention of the sewing machine changed women’s lives. But not always for the better.
The Great Smog
Devra Davis looks at the London Smog disaster of 1952-53.
Corn, Catholics and the Constitution: The Tory Crisis of 1827-30
Graham Goodlad considers the reasons for the disintegration of the early nineteenth-century Tory Party, which had dominated British politics for more than four decades.