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Q&A

Q&A A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts Where did people live after their homes were bombed in the Second World War? During the Second World War, approximately 3.75 million houses in the UK (about two in seven) were damaged by enemy action. About 220,000 were destroyed. The worst destruction took place in two […]

Hot cockles, handball and hide-and-seek

Tudor games Hot cockles, handball and hide-and-seek Nicholas Orme highlights some of the most popular children’s pastimes in Tudor England – from ball games to blind man’s buff – and explores their place in wider society It was fashionable, about 60 years ago, to say that childhood was a recent invention. In the past, it […]

Competing theories?

SCIENCE Competing theories? Patricia Fara is swept up by a novel exploration of the intertwined histories of science and religion spanning several continents and many centuries When Samuel Johnson embarked on the daunting project of compiling an English dictionary in 1746, he aimed – as he later said – to “embalm his language, and secure […]

Letters

Your letters LETTER OF THE MONTH Pirates and pen names Sam Willis’s entertaining article about Charles Johnson’s scandalous works popularising robbers, pirates and highwaymen (Murder and Mayhem in Georgian Britain, March) reignites a long controversy about the true identity of the author. Although the so-called “Captain” Johnson demonstrates a sound knowledge of seafarers’ speech and […]

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Kavita Puri’s Hidden histories

HIDDEN HISTORIES Kavita Puri explores lesser-known stories from our past “A broad reckoning with the Cultural Revolution is still far off in China” I spend a lot of my time thinking about historical memory, about when we choose to speak – or to forget – both as individuals and collectively. I also think about how […]

Michael Wood on… The history carried in our landscapes

COMMENT Michael Wood on… The history carried in our landscapes “Destroy a river and you also lose its past, part of our collective memory” The other day, I took the District Line to Barking for an urban history walk along one of London’s forgotten rivers, the Roding. This waterway flows into the Thames at Barking […]

Q&A: Gordon Corera on the Iraq War

Q&A “The early 2000s was a strange era of fear and terror – and the relentless drive towards conflict in Iraq was very much a part of that” Twenty years on from the Iraq War, a BBC Radio 4 series sets out to chart its causes and consequences. Matt Elton spoke to its presenter, Gordon […]

What happens to heritage sites following a catastrophe?

THE CONVERSATION COMPILED BY MATT ELTON BEHIND THE NEWS What happens to heritage sites following a catastrophe? As efforts continue to care for survivors of the devastating earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria in February, numerous historic sites in the region are also at risk. Katherine Pangonis explains how heritage organisations work to save ancient […]