History Today

Churchill’s vision of Britain’s role in the world may provide the key to Brexit.

Commemorating the overnight resting places of Eleanor's coffin, the 12 crosses were unveiled on 28 November 1291.

Medieval understanding of the soul and the body meant that a saintly life was a life of physical restrictions. Katherine Harvey explores the extreme suffering bishops put themselves through, from weeping and celibacy to starvation and, sometimes, death.

The visit of Natsume Sōseki to London at the turn of the 20th century suggested ways of successfully combining western industrialism with ‘Japanese Spirit’.

Franco’s 1939 victory in the Spanish Civil War saw half a million refugees head north to France. They would be followed by many more in a decade of disaster.

A diplomat representing Franco’s Spain and his accomplice, an Italian Fascist, became unlikely saviours of Jews stranded amid the horrors of the Hungarian capital during the Second World War.

In the post-Taliban era, Afghanistan is seeking unifying national heroes from its past. But, as David Loyn explains, agreement on who should be celebrated is hard to reach. 

Attitudes to female sexuality in the 19th century were rigid and unflinching and those who failed to conform were ostracised and persecuted. Victoria Leslie compares how fallen women were portrayed in the arts with the real stories of those who ‘fell’. 

As interesting as counterfactualism may be, we must be careful with its use. Paul Dukes warns against placing undue reliance on what might happen at the expense of what did.  

The 'healer' and friend to Tsar Nicholas II was killed on 17 December 1916.