H for History Posts

If you are, like us, hooked by the recent third series of The Crown (definitely NOT on our third re-watch, definitely not), then you’ll also want to know more about the history behind the events […]

Take time out this November to rediscover four wartime classics from the archives of Imperial War Museums (IWM). Listen to the works of forgotten writers of the Second World War, read by a selection of […]

To celebrate publication of his new book SAS Shadow Raiders, bestselling author Damien Lewis tells the untold story of Operation Colossus, the first ever Allied airborne raid – the forgotten heroes of WWII. In my […]

This year for Halloween, we have made a list of six thrilling reads: from wildly fascinating stories of witches around the world to bloody revolutions under the reign of Richard II to odd, unexplained mysteries. […]

I’ve always preferred the kind of history that comes from people’s mouths rather than the pages of books, so when I first stumbled across the story of the child migrants from Britain to Australia, I […]

I have the great good fortune to live not far from Plymouth, Devon, that lovely county in southwest England. Given that I write Age of Sail fiction and have a long-held interest in all things […]

Flight is the story of humankind’s most ambitious undertaking. From thousand-year-old flying machines and the trailblazing ‘birdmen’ who risked their lives to test them, to the Wright brothers’ legendary first flight and the iconic spacecraft […]

The gripping story of a propaganda campaign like no other: the covert British operation to manipulate American public opinion and bring the US into the Second World War. When William Stephenson – “our man in […]

Of about two dozen female artists working in the sixteenth century, Susanna Horenbout is one of the least known. In fact, no work can be attributed to her with confidence. Nevertheless, she is accounted as […]

In my first days at the BBC, more than thirty years ago, the struggle between Her Majesty’s Government and a frail pensioner down under was at the top of the running order nearly every night. […]

Posted on: 09/09/2019   In Autumn 1991 the fifteen republics that had together constituted the Soviet Union, also known as the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, broke out of the union to become independent states, […]

Until last week, I would have stated firmly that there were no portraits of any of Henry VIII’s wives as young teenagers. But, wandering around the Basilika of St Lambertus in Dusseldorf (the former capital […]