Britain

The Spectator was first published on March 1st, 1711. 

Medieval historian Nicholas Orme believes that the teaching of history in Britain’s universities is better now than it has ever been.

Despite their mutual loathing and suspicion, James I and his parliaments needed one another, as Andrew Thrush explains. The alternative, ultimately, was civil war.

The successful Broadway run of The Pitmen Painters, Lee Hall’s drama set in a north-east mining community, has introduced US audiences to a remarkable chapter in British working-class life, writes  Robert Colls.

A series of violent attacks by pale shrouded figures on lone pedestrians, especially women, was widely reported in the early 19th century. Jacob Middleton uncovers the sham ghosts of Georgian London.

The current House of Commons is notable for the number of members who are also historians. Will Robinson welcomes this trend, while reminding us of Parliament’s sometimes troubled relationship with its own past.

The innocence of France’s Captain Dreyfus – a Jewish officer incarcerated on Devil’s Island after he was accused of spying for Germany – has long been established. But was there a real traitor? And what part did Oscar Wilde play in the murky affair?

In 1538, believing his kingdom to be under threat, Henry VIII brutally settled scores dating back to the dynastic conflicts of the 15th century, as Desmond Seward explains.

The linguistic legacy of the King James Bible is immense. But, David Crystal discovers, it is not quite the fount of common expressions that many of its admirers believe it to be.