Military

The ‘biggest, bloodiest and longest battle on English soil’ was fought at Towton in Yorkshire on Palm Sunday 1461. Its brutality was a consequence of deep geographical and cultural divisions which persist to this day.

Alex von Tunzelmann reassesses a two-part article on the troubled relationship between the United States and Cuba, published in History Today 50 years ago in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

A major battle in the Peninsular War took place on 16 May 1811.

Perhaps the US-backed invasion of Fidel Castro's Cuba was inevitable, but its failure bucked the trend.

Richard Cavendish recreates the circumstances of Horatio Nelson's victory at Copenhagen on April 2nd, 1801.

Roger Moorhouse revisits a perceptive article by John Erickson on the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, first published in History Today in 2001, its insights born of a brief period of Russian openness.

Held during a period of intense great power rivalry, the Hague Conference sought to prevent conflict but ended up rewriting the laws of war instead.

Few British soldiers have written of their experiences of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Here, former infantry officer Patrick Mercer recalls his tours, which offer lessons for today’s soldiers and politicians.

Decadent, effeminate, outdated, the image of the Cavalier remains that of his enemies, victorious in the Civil Wars. John Stubbs offers a rather more complex corrective view.