History Today

The Met opened its doors on 22 October 1883.

The story of silk, which connected the world with a thread.

When the Great War broke out in 1914, the German imperial army was regarded as the finest fighting force on earth. Just four years later, it was crushed by Britain and its allies.

Caring for the mentally ill in Victorian Britain was hard, unrewarding and dangerously unregulated. Alexander Morison tried to improve things for both the unwell and their carers.

Autocrats have deployed automatons as weapons since antiquity, not just in myth but in reality. 

Having survived the rigours of the First World War, soldiers faced the return to civilian life. For some, it presented an even greater challenge.

Often lost behind stories of kings, queens, bishops and saints, what was life like for an Anglo-Saxon woman below the upper ranks of society?

Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, was an armed prophet who adopted the characteristics of Machiavelli’s lion and fox.

‘Ideas don’t do things; people do.’

Gypsies: An English History by David Cressy is a sympathetic narrative of a people integral to the national story.