Volume 57 Issue 1 January 2007

The Asian influenza epidemic of 1957 killed more than 16,000 people in Britain and more than a million globally. It exposed the fragility of the antibiotic age.

Debbi Codling looks at the beliefs and spiritual life of the man who usurped Richard II, an anointed king.

Jörg Friedrich’s horrifying account of the Allied bombing raids caused a stir on its first publication in Germany. Now it has been translated into English, and York Membery has canvassed some leading British historians for their views.

Tony Rothman recalls one of the turning points of early modern history, when a heroic defence prevented the rampant Ottoman forces from gaining a strategic foothold in the central Mediterranean.

Charles Freeman visits the Eternal City, and finds the Castel Sant’Angelo, home to emperors and popes, to be the clue to unravelling its fabulously rich and complex history.

Following our article in November about Thomas Cochrane’s plans for chemical warfare, Richard Dale, author of a new book on Cochrane, reveals how the maverick naval hero was disgraced over his association with a stock market scandal.

Charlotte Crow reports a recent debate between historians and programme makers on the state of history on the small screen, and a television success in that field.

The background to Manet’s extraordinary series of paintings of the demise of a Mexican emperor.