History Today

The Korean War began as a conflict over territory. It would become a fight for prisoners’ asylum.

‘One historical mystery I’d like to solve? Was there a written Führer Order for the “Final Solution”? Unlikely, but I’d like to know.’

Remembered today as a national hero, Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, had an upbringing which spanned Essex to Ulster. He was a hybrid king to the last.

When a priceless altarpiece was stolen from a Belgian cathedral it sparked a 90-year hunt. The crime remains unsolved.

Miyamoto Musashi was finally defeated on 13 June 1645, but it wasn’t a sword that laid the formidable samurai low.

Could a text thought to be by Shakespeare’s father actually be his sister’s writing?

Approaching history through ideas – how people thought – is not the only method, but it is one that has stood the test of time.

In Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans: The British Occupation of Germany, 1945-49, Daniel Cowling brings lost stories to light – some of them, at least.

On 8 June 1949, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. His final novel, its themes had been present throughout his literary career.

Sarah Wise’s The Undesirables: The Law that Locked Away a Generation lays bare the cruelty and injustice of the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913.