History Today

In the early eighteenth century, writes Zélide Cowan, John Lethbridge spent some forty years salvaging treasure from sunken ships.

Gerald Morgan introduces Byron’s friend and executor; a radical Whig and head of the East India Company during the Afghan troubles of 1835-43.

Rex Winsbury profiles a Soviet gunman and secret agent who assassinated the German Ambassador and was himself shot in 1929 after visiting Trotsky in exile.

Alan Haynes describes how Italian scholars, merchants and craftsmen were welcomed in Elizabethan London and enjoyed high patronage.

Horatio Gates, the victor of Saratoga, had military designs that went unfulfilled, writes Max M. Mintz; both to invade Canada and displace Washington as Continental Commander. 

Louis C. Kleber profiles the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1872; a self-made man who combined lofty ideals with many eccentric prejudices.

The Charity school movement in the eighteenth century, writes L.W. Cowie, was the first attempt to provide for the education of the children of the poor in England.

As Consul General for Great Britain in Egypt, Henry Salt established a friendly understanding with the free Albanian Viceroy Mohamed Ali. John Brinton describes how, through their relationship, Salt was able to rescue many treasures of ancient Egyptian art.

Barbara Kerr profiles a nineteenth-century country vicar who was a militant reformer in sewage and sanitation.

David Chandler describes how visiting old battlefields has become a holiday attraction for many tourists besides old soldiers.