History Today

John Charmley rewrites the history of the Tory Party restoring to its heart the earls of Derby, owners of Knowsley Hall.

As the 75th birthday of the famous cartoon adventurer Tintin is marked at the end of this month by a special exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, Hergé’s biographer Michael Farr tells how his boyhood love of the character led to a special relationship with its creator.

Rikki Kersten extols the example of an unlikely hero, the historian Ienaga Saburo, who singlehandedly challenged Japan’s official view of responsibility for its behaviour in the Second World War.

The first pope to call himself ‘servant of the servants of God’ died on March 12th, 604.

The events leading up to Britain and France's declarations of war on Russia on successive days on 27 and 28 March 1854.

Angela McShane Jones asks what depictions in broadsides of Mary II with her breasts exposed, tell us about 17th-century popular attitudes to royalty.

Nick Barratt argues that Normandy’s loss in the reign of King John has had a far-reaching impact on Britain.

The ‘most controversial character in the history of discovery’ was born on March 9th, 1454. But who was Amerigo Vespucci?

The best history books, films and students of 2003 announced.

Robert Garland asks what murder meant to the apparently bloodthirsty Greeks and Romans.