History Today

Robert Knecht revisits an article marking 400 years since the assassination of Henry III of France and asks why the last Valois king has attracted so little attention from English-speaking historians.

John Henderson challenges received ideas on how medieval and early modern societies dealt with perils such as plague.

The suffering of prisoners of war at the hands of the Japanese during the Second World War has coloured the British view of the conflict in the Far East. Clare Makepeace highlights a little known aspect of the captives’ story: their quest for compensation.

Jessie Childs recounts the chilling story of an exorcism performed in an Elizabethan household in Hackney.

The strangeness of the past can be evoked more effectively in pick and mix fantasies than in those novels, films and TV dramas that aspire to realism, argues Suzannah Lipscomb.

Chris Wrigley explores the hugely beneficial impact of the First World War on the British tobacco industry and looks at how smoking became an approved symbol of comradeship and patriotism.

Roger Hudson takes a roadside view of the automobiles about to embark on the arduous, 22,000-mile journey.

The turmoil in Ukraine has a strong religious dimension. Catherine Wanner asks if a common Christian heritage may yet help maintain relations with its Russian neighbour.

Mother, sister, wife and lover and part of the Roman elite, Agrippina the Younger sought to escape the restrictions imposed on her sex.