BBC History Magazine4 min read
Letters
I wanted to write in to say how moved I was by Hannah Skoda’s article on the history of breastfeeding (An Act of Love, February). I became a mum myself quite recently, and wasn’t ready for how breastfeeding can feel lonely, frustrating, beautiful and
BBC History Magazine1 min read
Stealing The Show
Was The Ghost Theatre inspired by real-life Elizabethans? It was inspired by a 1602 court case in which nobleman Henry Clifton accused the owner of the Blackfriars Theatre, Henry Evans, of kidnapping his son. The boy was snatched in the street to be
BBC History Magazine4 min read
Split In Five Places
Split’s cathedral, one of the oldest in Europe, is a curious octagonal shape without a processional nave and with few windows. That’s because it wasn’t built as a church at all, but as the mausoleum for the Roman emperor Diocletian, within the vast p
BBC History Magazine2 min read
Impossible Escapes
Perched atop a lump of rock surrounded by the treacherous waters of the Pacific, Alcatraz doesn’t sound like the kind of place you’d have much chance of escaping from. But, as Ashley Rubin revealed in a recent episode of the podcast, that didn’t stop
BBC History Magazine8 min read
Beastly Victorians
In June 1849, Tempest Fletcher, a greengrocer from York Street, London, appeared before magistrates charged with “cutting and maiming a dog of the St Bernard breed, the property of Mr Gibbs, a gentleman residing in Plummer’s-row, City-road”. Accordin
BBC History Magazine3 min read
Discovering The Startling Truth
Human beings have existed on this planet for many millennia. But only in the 19th century was the startling truth about the history of the world and our origins gradually uncovered. The story of how these profound changes in our understanding unfolde
BBC History Magazine2 min read
The World In A Corner Of England
“I followed paths so familiar that I knew where the puddles would be.” This is Alexandra Harris admitting, midway in her journey through life, that the best path took her back to West Sussex, where she was born and grew up. Harris’s intention in retu
BBC History Magazine1 min read
This Issue's Contributors
“Exploring women’s diaries was like plunging into a rich sea of struggle, sex, spiky humour, adventure and agony. What struck me was how often the battles of the past echo those we still fight today.” Sarah Gristwood reveals what diaries can tell us
BBC History Magazine2 min readInternational Relations
Timeline Cataclysm In The East
Serbian nationalist student Gavrilo Princip guns down Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the AustroHungarian throne. A month later Austria declares war on Serbia, triggering a domino effect that will draw much of Europe into war. Austria-Hungar
BBC History Magazine10 min readLGBTQIA+ Studies
"The Black Gay Movement Has Always Been A Broad Church"
Matt Elton: Your book is based on interviews with a group of men from the London district of Brixton. Who did you speak to, and how did you meet? Jason Okundaye: I was researching rates of HIV among Black gay men in Britain, and part of that involved
BBC History Magazine1 min read
Solution To Our February 2024 Crossword
Across 1 Piracy 4 Philippa 10 Lancaster 11 Chirk 12 Danelaw 13 Iceland 14 Nepos 16 Graf Spee 19 Corvette 20 Verdi 21 Linkman 23 Morocco 25 Ducat 26 Elizabeth 27 Space Age 28 Levant Down 1 Paladin 2 Ronin 3 Charles IV 5 Hermitage 6 Locke 7 Privateer 8
BBC History Magazine2 min read
Colin Gubbins 1896–1976
Novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz chooses Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins was the first, great architect of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the Second World War. After being awarded the Military Cross for his actions at the battle
BBC History Magazine1 min read
Welcome April 2024
"When we think of the First World War – in Britain at least – the images that come to mind tend to be those of the western front: from the desolate, muddy battlefields to the privations of the trenches. But there was another, equally titanic, campaig
BBC History Magazine4 min read
A Sustainable, Historical Three-course Feast
Today, a third of the food produced worldwide goes to waste. Climate activists regularly urge us to think before we throw perfectly good food in the bin, while the UN’s target of 2030 to halve global food waste is fast approaching. But how did our fo
BBC History Magazine2 min read
Queens Of The Blues
A remarkable account of the early history of female liberation in Britain, this intricate story weaves together the many luminaries and intellectuals of 18th-century life. We meet Elizabeth Montagu, Hester Thrale, Ann Yearsley and Catherine Macaulay,
BBC History Magazine5 min read
Emily Anderson Codebreaking pioneer
In November 1962, at St John’s Parish Church, I Hampstead, the funeral took place of a 72-yearold retired civil servant named Emily Anderson. An apparently unremarkable, rather shy woman, one neighbour tellingly observed that she was “very self-conta
BBC History Magazine4 min read
Encounters
PODCAST Escaping from Alcatraz EXPLORE Cerne Abbas Giant, Dorset TRAVEL Split, Croatia For nearly three decades, the violent sectarian conflict known as the Troubles tore Northern Ireland apart. Pitting communities against each other and involving ac
BBC History Magazine6 min read
Anniversaries
The world’s largest passenger ship heads for New York City The year leading up to the maiden voyage of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s pioneering paddle-wheeled steamship, SS Great Western, was far from plain sailing. Built in Bristol’s Wapping Wharf, the
BBC History Magazine4 min read
"The Victorians Saw The Post Office As A Highly Reliable Local Institution"
Matt Elton: We’re talking today about a story that’s made headlines again in recent months: the Post Office scandal, which has led to the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of subpostmasters since 1999 and damaged the reputation of a key institution in
BBC History Magazine3 min read
Hidden Histories
I HAVE SPENT A LOT OF TIME OVER THE PAST year interviewing eyewitnesses and reading archival material relating to the 1943 Bengal famine. It has all been part of the research for my new BBC Radio 4 series Three Million, which I wrote about in last mo
BBC History Magazine4 min read
Prize Crossword
1 Western-most of the three ancient cities of Tripolitania, part of what is now Libya (8) 5 Ancient Egyptian god, representing both fertility and the afterlife (6) 10 Viral illness known to Hippocrates in the fifth century BC, now prevented by the MM
BBC History Magazine8 min readDiscrimination & Race Relations
"We Need To Break Free Of Our Babyish Way Of Looking At The Past"
Your new book explores the impact of the British empire around the world, which is obviously a weighty, complex topic. But I wanted to begin in the place it starts: on holiday. Can you tell us about how your trip inspired the project? I went to Barba
BBC History Magazine1 min read
Did You Know…?
A 19th-century Cornish clergyman once impersonated a mermaid to see whether people could be fooled into believing such a creature existed. The eccentric Robert Hawker donned a wig, covered his legs in oilskin and swam out to a rock in the sea where h
BBC History Magazine9 min read
The Dark Mirror
It was “incomparably the greatest war in history. In its scale, in its slaughter, in the exertions of the combatants, in its military kaleidoscope, it far surpasses by magnitude and intensity all similar human episodes.” Winston Churchill wrote these
BBC History Magazine2 min read
BBC History Magazine
EDITORIAL Editor Rob Attar robertattar@historyextra.com Deputy editor Matt Elton mattelton@historyextra.com Senior production editor Spencer Mizen Production editor Jon Bauckham Section editor Rebecca Franks Staffwriter Danny Bird Picture editor Sama
BBC History Magazine1 min read
Next Month
The forgotten Norman Conquest Sophie Thérèse Ambler and James Morris on the final chapter of the Norman invasion of England
BBC History Magazine1 min read
Three Things I've Learned This Month
While our piece on Victorian animal cruelty contains many sad tales, it also features some quirkier titbits. I’m desperate to find out more about the “sheep fond of practical jokes” (page 41). I was intrigued to read, in this month’s Q&A, that follow
BBC History Magazine4 min read
The Scourge Of Civilisations
Historians have been pronouncing the end of ‘western civilisation’ ever since the concept was first proposed by English-speaking historians and thinkers in the 19th century. Part of the problem is what anyone actually means by ‘the west’. Most of us
BBC History Magazine1 min read
How the World Made the West
Book worth £30 for 4 winners In her latest book, historian Josephine Quinn challenges the traditional narrative that western civilisation was founded in Greece and Rome, arguing that it was instead the product of diverse global interactions spanning
BBC History Magazine2 min read
"People Are Finding It Nourishing That They Are Discovering Their Archaeology on Their Own Terms"
The countries you explore in the latest series of Bettany Hughes’ Treasures of the World – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Estonia, Albania and Bulgaria – were all within the Soviet sphere. Do they represent unexplored territory in archaeological terms? There w
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