History Today

London's Charity Schools, 1690-1730

'The greatest Instances of publick Spirit the Age has produced', but confessional strife between Anglicans and Nonconformists, as well as the bitter battles of Whigs and Tories, was the stimulus for an educational programme for the poor. Craig Rose investigates.

Liverpool and the American Civil War

Sentiment, profit and commercial laissez-faire bound the merchants of England's busiest port ever closer to the rebel confederacy across the Atlantic after 1861. John D. Pelzer explains how and why.

Oswald Mosley as Entrepreneur

When money for Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists began to dry up in the late 1930s, he turned to novel schemes for fund-raising. James and Patience Barnes recount the intriguing story.

The Baha'is of Iran

Juan Cole looks at the pacifist, prophetic and millenarian 'world religion' whose leader emerged from the social and political unrest of 19th-century Iran and whose followers have since been persecuted by shah and ayatollah alike.

Rebels without a Cause? Teenagers in the 50s

'What's the matter with kids today?' Beth Bailey looks at the teen dreams of America's golden post-war years and finds ambivalence about their attitudes to affluence, competition and 'going steady'.

Euthanasia and the Third Reich

Michael Burleigh describes how the traditional debate over euthanasia was given a perverted twist by the Nazi use of it for a campaign of mass extermination, and the films and actors they used to enlist support for it.