T oothbrushing has been a regular part of most people’s daily routines since the mid-20th century, but it was only a few ...

Lost Countries of South America, Laurence Blair explores nine nations, dissolved or imagined, and what they tell us about Latin America. Aside from the Falklands War, and perhaps the Spanish conquest, ...

Donald Trump has often been likened to Aaron Burr, described as ‘one of the most unprincipled men in the United States’. His isolationism, however, owes more to Thomas Jefferson.

In 1861 serfdom, the system which tied the Russian peasants irrevocably to their landlords, was abolished at the Tsar’s imperial command. Four years later, slavery in the USA was similarly declared ...

The rapid surrender of Japan in 1945 certainly suggested that the United States possessed the most decisive of weapons. Indeed there is reason to suspect that the real purpose in using them was less ...

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 ...

Renaissance Italy was dominated by rich and powerful families whose reputations have been shaped by the many dark and dastardly deeds they committed. In quattrocento Florence, the Medici bought, ...

A rather unusual petition from October 1716 is tucked away in the pope’s diocesan archives in the basilica of San Giovanni in Rome: Antonio Piervenanzi, parish priest of San Benedetto in Piscinola, ...

As a boy in military school, Charles Barbier de La Serre (1767-1841) was taught that war was a noble profession in which victories are won by intelligence and valour. As a man, he would come to learn ...

Conservative Party leadership elections have rarely been out of the headlines in recent years. Since David Cameron resigned in 2016 there have been five contests to decide who will lead the United ...

In June 1947 Kenneth Arnold was flying a small plane over Mount Rainier in Washington when nine bright objects began tracking him at high speed. People have always seen signs and wonders in the skies, ...

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