History Today

We might applaud the tall, blond and ruggedly handsome Vikings of pop culture as being historically accurate, but authentic engagement with the past requires more than just convincing hair and make-up.

Although best known as Elizabeth I’s court magician, John Dee was also one of England’s most learned men. Katie Birkwood explores his books and the wealth of information they can provide on his early life. 

Through the myth of the executioner’s mask, Alison Kinney explores our tortured relationship with life, death, mortality and museums.

For the tsarist regime, Siberia was a ‘vast prison without a roof’, where thousands of revolutionaries and political opponents were exiled. It became, as Daniel Beer explains, a laboratory of the Russian Revolution.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was published on May 11th, 1916.

One of the greatest films of all time made its debut on May 1st, 1941.

The first White Rajah of Sarawak was born on April 29th, 1803.

The attempt to overthrow British rule and found an Irish Republic began on 24 April 1916.

Few events have been as romanticised and misunderstood as the Jacobite Rebellion. And, as Jacqueline Riding explains, politics has brought its myths to the fore once again.

There are to sides to every story but the survival of sources from antiquity means we do not always see both. Tim Whitmarsh calls for a more nuanced view of Jews in the Greco-Roman world.