What if Russia had won the Space Race? One TV drama dares to ask
It’s the most famous piece of TV footage in history. A grainy black-and-white shot of a man in a spacesuit gingerly descending a ladder, and as he…
Why are the English so squeamish about patriotism?
They include the terrible tragedy of the Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay by the inrushing tide; the manslaughter of a Polish settler in the aftermath…
Sex, rage and wigs: the baroque’n’roll life of JS Bach
It is, of course, perverse to write a novel about one of the greatest musicians who has ever lived. Johann Sebastian Bach is the voice of God in…
The secrets of Schiele’s muses: did the artist sleep with his sister?
In 1904, when Egon Schiele was just 14 years old, his strict stationmaster father broke down a locked door in the family home – in the small…
Who’s behind the Buzzer? The chilling mystery of Russia’s ‘ghost’ radio station
For these operators, huddled around their sets while disembodied messages emerged from the static, it was a formative experience. “You’re listening and all of a sudden you…
The ‘Indiana Jones of the Deep’ on discovering Endurance: ‘I’ve been knocked sideways’
In the next day or two, the expedition’s icebreaker, SS Agulhas II, will stop off en route for South Africa on the uninhabited South Georgia, a Falkland…
Russian World: the dangerous doctrine driving Putin’s destruction of Ukraine
The idea was taken up by Putin, who used it as an arm of his foreign policy from 2012. The Russian World, he argued, was a “family”…
The cloud hanging over Christopher Nolan’s explosive Oppenheimer biopic
“I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” That line, from the epic Hindu poem Bhagavad Gita, was what came to J Robert Oppenheimer’s mind as he watched…
Putin has learnt nothing from his beloved Soviet history books
Given the events of the 1930s in Ukraine, it is perhaps not surprising that a number of Ukrainians initially wanted to help the Nazis. In doing so,…
Neil MacGregor interview: ‘Why don’t we have a Museum of England?’
Neil MacGregor studied many cultures of the world while director of the British Museum, but it is the English he finds the most perplexing. “Why is there…
How to unearth buried treasure in your own back garden
It is a puzzle that growing numbers are finding themselves addicted to. In lockdowns, while stuck at home, we quite literally mined our gardens for inspiration. Duckworth…
Why Putin is obsessed with Ukraine and Russia being ‘one people’
When Moscow was still a cluster of huts, the city of Kyiv was a cultural metropolis. Anna Yaroslavna, daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kyiv…
A quarter of teenagers think Churchill was fictional: we need historians now more than ever
Not that he is ever dull when reaching into the more distant past. Few will forget his description of Edward Gibbon, with his big flapping cheeks, 4ft…
For a country that has been so focused on its own history, Britain is strikingly ignorant
Another day, another half-dozen trigger warnings issued. Whether it’s schools, universities or museums, those in the business of expanding minds now seem intent on shutting them down…
What Britain was really like without its royal family
To historians of a certain age, the years between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 conjure up just…
The Lion House review: this gripping history is Istanbul’s Wolf Hall
The year is 1522 and the court is in crisis. A young ruler wants to assert his authority over his land. A large empire led by a…
Bloodthirsty gods and gracious men: the brutal truth about Vikings
Somewhere in the Wicklow Mountains, actor Travis Fimmel was hung in a cage – suspended high above a pit of venomous snakes. These were the final moments…
Honey, I’ve bought Stonehenge! The true story of Cecil Chubb, its last private owner
Born in 1876, Chubb grew up in Shrewton, a farming village close to the stones. His father and grandfather were saddlers and harness makers. Chubb, though, was…
Sid Meier interview: ‘Before Civilization, strategy was a dirty word in gaming’
A few days before his birthday, it is difficult to tell whether Sid Meier is about to turn 68 or 16. The Canadian-American video game programmer and…
Cornwallis by Richard Middleton review: can the British general who lost America be rehabilitated?
In the midst of its global struggle with Napoleonic France, Britain lost three imperial heroes within months of one another. Nelson’s death at Trafalgar on October 21…
We all pulled together through Covid – why can’t we the rest of the time?
Speaking (via Zoom, of course) to Her Majesty the Queen at the height of the pandemic, Derek Grieve, a lynchpin of the Scottish vaccination programme, told the…
Rise of the Nazis, review: if only BBC Two would show more proper history documentaries like this
What is the point of BBC Two? According to its remit, it exists to provide “knowledge-building programming”. Really, though, it has become a channel on which to…
Inside the battle to be Britain’s oldest pub
News of the closure of Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans has ricocheted around the world, the imminent shuttering of “England’s oldest pub” devastating patrons from…
Rare treasures unearthed at Tower of London moat shed new light on capital’s ‘formidable fortress’
A First World War training round and a 15th century French jetton are among treasures to have been discovered by excavators at the Tower of London. Also…
Why sanctions and blockades can backfire catastrophically
The implications could be troubling, as Mulder shows. One idealistic young official of the League blithely wrote: “It is the starvation of the general population and in…