Volume 51 Issue 4 April 2001

Richard Cavendish provides a brief history of the Miss World contest, first won by Miss Sweden, Kiki Haakinson, on April 19th, 1951.

Susan Walker looks at our image of the great queen, as a major exhibition on her life opens at the British Museum.

York Membery looks at the advertisements that graced the first issue of History Today, and sees in them a reflection of the magazine's own past, and of a changing society.

Roy Porter discusses how the British Enlightenment paved the way for the modern world.

Japan's 124th Emperor was born on April 29th, 1901

Alexandra Walsham looks for the meaning of unusual phenomena widely reported across early modern Europe.