Volume 56 Issue 2 February 2006

Art historian and museologist Julian Spalding finds nothing to beat looking carefully at historic objects in their original surroundings.

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant looks at the work of one artist who took on the power of Tammany Hall and won – and his protégé whose enemies resorted to drawing up legislation in their unsuccessful effort to muzzle him.

The Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, later to be known as Kellogg's, was founded on February 19th, 1906.

Few works of art are as closely linked to history as the gold salt cellar commissioned by Francis I of France in 1541 from the Florentine goldsmith and sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini. Its theft three years ago from an Austrian art gallery is a major loss to world heritage as Robert Knecht explains.

Archaeologists in Italy are uncovering fascinating evidence about the origins of Italy’s medieval hilltop villages to create a new and compelling picture of the circumstances that brought them into being, says Richard Hodges.

David Culbert looks at the development of radio news commentary in the United States in the late 1930s and the political climate that shaped it.

The US army’s mass murder of unarmed civilians at My Lai became a watershed in public perceptions of the Vietnam War.

Jacob Middleton investigates the eccentric set of prejudices against shaving that led Victorian men to adorn their chins with a lush growth of facial hair.

Henry VIII may be our most famous monarch, a man who still bestrides English history as mightily as he dominated his kingdom nearly 500 years ago – but how well do we really understand him?