History Matters

As the medieval book trade declined, Oxford scribes had to turn their hands to other crafts to get by.

At the end of the First World War a British force under Major-General Lionel Dunsterville launched a daring campaign to cut off Ottoman oil supplies at Baku.

Parliament’s champion of the people or scandalous, self-serving politician? Georgian radical John Wilkes kept a foot in both camps.

The dismissal of a government scientist over the unproven battery additive AD-X2 galvanised the American scientific community in the 1950s.

After the Flood, Noah’s sons were repurposed to support a new worldview justifying racial hierarchy and slavery.

The lifelong rivalry of two early modern Neapolitan printers was a battle of books, power, and, ultimately, fire.

In 13th-century England excommunication was akin to spiritual leprosy. How did it work?

In the 1970s and 1980s Wimpy faced off with McDonald’s in a battle over what it meant to eat British.

European intelligence agencies assisted Mossad’s Wrath of God assassination campaign, while their governments condemned them.

For the Victorians and Edwardians, the late British summer was a time of sun, sand – and sea serpents.