On 9 March 1522 the Swiss Reformation began with an ‘ostentatious eating of sausages.’ T he Reformation in Switzerland began ...

On 5 March 1936 the prototype Spitfire made its maiden flight. Its creator R.J. Mitchell would not live to see its finest ...

The purchase of firearms is largely unregulated in the US and it is unlikely that Congress will act to change this any time soon. President Obama has tried and failed to introduce stricter gun control ...

Rome’s first theatre was an enormous spectacle intended to glorify Pompey’s successes. Was it all bread and circuses? I n the ...

This superbly ominous story is the earliest English record of the legend of the Wild Hunt. This legend, found in folklore ...

The volte face has been astonishing. Until 2017, or thereabouts, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was seen as the hallmark of Islamic puritanism, where compulsorily veiled women were forbidden to travel ...

In the context of American history vary widely. Describe something as a cult to a modern audience and what will most likely spring to mind is the Manson Family murders (1969), the 900 Jonestown murder ...

The Great Siege of Malta by Marcus Bull upends the myth of the Knights of Malta and their last stand of 1565. In 1942, at the height of the Axis powers’ siege of Malta, a young British ...

As Late Imperial China sought to rebuild as a modern state from the ashes of war, a new national post office was born.

In September 1870 concerned and curious Romans gathered at St Peter’s Basilica. Beyond the walls of the Vatican, Pope Pius IX claimed to have been imprisoned in his own realm. For more than a ...

The Great Peasants’ War was premodern Europe’s largest popular rising. Early stirrings in the southwestern corner of what is now Germany in the summer of 1524 grew to affect vast parts of the Holy ...

In his memoirs, the American air force general Curtis LeMay reflected on the results of the devastating air raid he had ordered on the crowded central zones of the Japanese capital, Tokyo, in March ...