History Today

Understanding the emotional lives of people in the past is one of the most difficult challenges facing the historian, argues Suzannah Lipscomb.

With the independence referendum just around the corner, Naomi Lloyd-Jones asks why the Scottish Home Rule Association, an important precursor of the SNP, has been largely forgotten.

When Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914 there was no outbreak of jingoism and no immediate rush to enlist.

The Concert of Europe, the diplomatic model championed by Britain in the run-up to the First World War, was doomed by the actions of competing nationalisms. Britain’s entry into the conflict became inevitable, despite its lack of military preparation, as Vernon Bogdanor explains.

Stephen Cooper and Ashley Cooper find parallels between the Schleswig-Holstein question and more recent European interventions.

T.P. Wiseman looks at how Roman republican ideals and the struggle between optimates and populares shaped the lives and legacies of the Roman imperator, Augustus, and his designated successor, Tiberius.

The much-loved film first appeared on August 12th, 1939.

A vicious killer died on 21 August 1614.

One of the key figures of the Italian Renaissance died on August 1st, 1464.

Plans to remake the landmark BBC TV series raise challenging questions about contemporary pieties.