The Nehru-Gandhi Family’s Tryst With Destiny
India cast off the monarchy in 1950, but the Nehru-Gandhi family have become republican royalty. How did one dynasty take centre stage in the world’s largest democracy?
Cold War
The Cuban Missile Crisis
John Swift examines the events that led the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.
The Dark Side of the Moon Race
John F. Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the Moon in the 1960s is remembered as a utopian vision. In reality, it was a purely political project that he soon came to regret.
The Berlin Wall: A Secret History
The Berlin Wall was a tangible symbol of the suppression of human rights under communism. Was it more convenient to the West than their rhetoric suggested?
Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’
Fifty years after Khrushchev’s famous denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, John Etty examines what was at stake.
The Suez Crisis and the British Empire
The political fallout of the Suez Crisis was keenly felt at home, but how did it change Britain’s approach to the Middle East? And what did it mean for the British Empire?
The Bombing of the King David Hotel
The bombing of the King David Hotel – the British headquarters in Mandatory Palestine – killed 91. What role did terrorism play in the birth of the state of Israel?
From Kennedy’s Cold War to the War on Terror
Gareth Jenkins looks for continuities in American foreign policy from the 1960s to the 2000s.
The First Hydrogen Bomb
The first US airdrop of a thermonuclear bomb happened on May 20th, 1956.
The My Lai Massacre and the War at Home
The US army’s mass murder of unarmed civilians at My Lai became a watershed in public perceptions of the Vietnam War.