History Matters

By the turn of the 20th century Carl Hagenbeck’s Tierpark had revolutionised zoo exhibits – and the exotic animal trade.

Rome welcomed and tended to the vast numbers of pilgrims who arrived in the 16th century, but its attitude to its own poor could be very different.

Postwar state support for agriculture in the UK has been hailed a great success, but it had unexpected consequences.

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?