History Today

Richard Cavendish explores the papacy of Pius X, who was elected on August 4th, 1903.

Richard Cavendish describes James IV of Scots and Margaret Tudor's wedding on August 8th, 1503.

Captain Meriwether Lewis set off from Pittsburgh on 31 August 1803, to begin the first American expedition to the Pacific overland.

Mikhail Safonov argues that the Beatles did more for the break up of totalitarianism in the USSR than Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.

Simon Sebag Montefiore describes an unlikely project to create an English village in Belorussia involving Catherine the Great’s lover and the philosopher Jeremy Bentham and his brother.

Janet L. Nelson argues that the study of medieval history in British schools is just what the twenty-first century requires.

Andrew Cook compares notes from Soviet sources and recently released MI5 files on Klaus Fuchs, the British nuclear physicist and spy who helped the Soviet Union develop the atom bomb.

The creation of the town of Saltaire exemplified the works of Victorian industrialists – philanthropy with an eye to profit.

The colourful cartoon development of British national symbols provides an acute barometer to changes in 18th- and 19th-century public opinion. By Peter Mellini and Roy. T. Matthews.