Caught between the antagonistic states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is stuck in geopolitical limbo. Its location – and its ...

In its first two centuries of existence Christianity witnessed the persecution of many of its members by officials of the Roman Empire; the causes of these persecutions have been and continue to be ...

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

Prague, under the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, became the centre of the Renaissance world, where cultures mixed and learning ...

A new book for the new year is an old British custom, but an old book can be even better.

If we consider why, almost two centuries after his death, we are still so interested in Napoleon Bonaparte’s great feats, and in his equally great downfall, part of the answer must lie in his ...

One of my favourite places in the world is the Living Hall of the Frick Collection in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Either side of its fireplace, crowned by a St Jerome of El Greco, hang two portraits ...

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 forced the Japanese government into unconditional surrender and the country, which was in a state of collapse, was occupied by ...

In May 1756, an elderly governess died in the household of the Duke and Duchess of Portland, and was quickly and quietly buried in the churchyard of St Margaret’s, Westminster. Elizabeth Elstob left ...

So when Raúl Castro called for an end to the embargo based on economic and humanitarian grounds in late December, he was ...

If you haven’t yet read the History Today Books of the Year Part 1, you can find it here. But this year has also been a time of small miracles. We were so glad to welcome a new generation raising ...

Nile Green is Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History at UCLA and author of Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah (W.W. Norton) In the mid-1500s, the ...