History Today

Simon Craig discovers that drug abuse in professional sport goes back more than a hundred years.

Rod Phillips explains why, in spite of the reputation of old vintages, most wine consumed in the past would not have suited modern palates.

Nigel Saul tells how, in spite of famines and visitations of the plague, conditions were better than ever before for those living in 1400.

The anniversary of De Gaulle’s London address to ‘Free France’.

Robert Peel suffered a fatal fall from his horse on June 29th, 1850. He died three days later.

Huw V. Bowen asks whether the East India Company was one of the ‘most powerful engines’ of state and empire in British history.

Susan-Mary Grant looks at the motivations of ordinary citizens to fight their fellow Americans under either the Confederate or the Union flags.

Tony Stockwell looks behind the exotic facade to examine the role of the kings of Siam and Thailand in modernising their country.

To Cold War hawks the ambitions of Stalin lay behind Kim Il Sung. Only with the opening of archives some 50 years later did Soviet responsibility for the Korean War become known.

Consumer historian Robert Opie tells how he first came to recognise the value of everyday discarded things, and suggests the need for a new awareness of our recent past.