History Today

The Cyrillic alphabet is celebrated across the Slavonic-speaking world, but not only as an appreciation of literacy – it has a political dimension too.

Jack the Ripper was a media sensation. The press frenzy surrounding him made the sites of his murders tourist destinations, attracting thousands of visitors.

Ireland’s experience of partition informed the attitudes of people across the island towards British plans for Palestine. Today it informs sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Once Rome’s main artery south, for centuries the Via Appia has been taken as proof of Roman greatness.

With a line on a map, the Treaty of Tordesillas split the world between Spain and Portugal. Was it a grand refutation of papal authority or an extension of it?

When the English and Nazi German football teams met for the first time on British soil in 1935, the game was not the headline.

Following his accession, the majority of James I’s new English subjects accepted their Scottish king with ‘comforte and contentmente’. Such sentiments would not last.

Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World by Kathryn Hughes follows the reinvention of the cat from working animal to purrfect pet.

In spring 1944 the Allied invasion of France seemed inevitable. D-Day’s success was contingent on deception of the enemy. For that, officials turned to the press.