Georgian

Surgeons trying to eliminate pain eventually arrived at anaesthesia – but not before a contest with older, more unusual therapies. Why was mesmerism so magnetic?

Political reputations are forged by actions, but the long view of history can be hard to predict.

Two rare textile discoveries connect 18th-century Barbadian schoolgirls to England.

British soldiers fighting in the American Revolutionary War were unprepared for the terrain awaiting them across the Atlantic. Many thought that America was determined to destroy them; some felt it had succeeded.

Chevaliere d’Eon or Chevalier d’Eon? An 18th-century legal dispute between two French spies unravelled into a public battle about identity.

British agents of empire saw their actions in India through the texts of their classical educations. They looked for Alexander, cast themselves as Aeneas and hoped to emulate Augustus.

November 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the first passenger trains between London and Paris. What does the history of the Channel Tunnel tell us about Britain’s relationship with its neighbours?

Robert Clive’s death has long been attributed to suicide. What is the evidence?

The often overlooked life of Robert Fergusson, Edinburgh’s unofficial poet laureate and Scotland’s voice.

On 9 October 1771 masterpieces of Dutch art destined for Catherine the Great sank with the Vrouw Maria off the coast of Finland.