Said to have ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’, Helen of Troy has been remembered, judged – and hated – by every age since she entered the written record 2,700 years ago. With great beauty comes great resentment.
A Tudor portrait in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, once believed to be Mary I when princess, has recently been relabelled ‘Possibly Lady Jane Grey’ as the result of research by Ph.D student J. Stephan Edwards. Here he explains how the iconography in the painting prompted the discovery.
Much has been written about Guy Fawkes, but less well-known are the two figures who apprehended him in Parliament's cellars.
John Julius Norwich has an infectious enthusiasm in his writing that makes his books hugely popular. Here he explains why certain subjects have allured him, such as the exotic world of medieval Sicily and his adored Venice, while others leave him cold.
The organisation which would become the political arm of the Irish Republican Army was founded as a nationalist pressure group on November 28th, 1905.
David Livingstone reached the Victoria Falls on November 17th, 1855.
The future Queen of France was born on November 2nd, 1755
Cartoon historian Mark Bryant examines significant cartoons and caricatures from the history of the genre, in Britain and overseas and from the 18th century until 1945, and tells the fascinating stories behind them.
Tom Neuhaus looks at the subversive young Germans known as Swing Youth who refused to have their hobbies and tastes dictated to them by the Nazis.
As preparations are made for Saddam Hussein’s trial in Iraq, Clive Foss examines the precedents for bringing tyrants to justice and finds the process fraught with political complexity.
