Breaking news
More used to talking about war than fighting one, TV historian Neil Oliver says lately he has felt like he’s in ‘the Ypres Salient in the First World War’, fighting skirmish after skirmish. The area in Belgium was the scene of some of the Western Front’s fiercest battles and, recently, the 53-year-old presenter has found … Read more
November 1917, and the day dawned dank and foggy over the water-logged trenches near Cambrai in eastern France. Not surprisingly, Gefreiter (Lance-Corporal) Wilhelm Bar of Germany’s 27th Reserve Infantry Regiment was feeling more demoralised than usual. Then suddenly, out of the mist, burst a hurricane of shellfire, swiftly followed by the grinding sound of hundreds … Read more
TV historian David Olusoga said racism in broadcasting left him clinically depressed. The Civilisations presenter said it is ‘lonely’ as a black person in the television industry and he has often been left feeling ‘patronised and marginalised’ throughout his career. Speaking in the wake of the global Black Lives Matter movement, the historian said the industry … Read more
Outrage as TV historian becomes the second white BBC presenter says the N word on air in three days American History’s Biggest Fibs presented by Lucy Worsley aired on Saturday The show covered the history of slavery and a speech by Abraham Lincoln Worsley provided reaction to Lincoln saying black people should be able to … Read more
Napoleon-obsessed historian shot his student lover four times in the head and kept her body in his flat for days before dismembering her, court hears Professor Oleg Sokolov, 64, shot Anastasia Yeschenko, 24, during an argument He ‘squeezed the victim’s neck with his hands’ before firing three more shots Sokolov dismembered body and dumped parts … Read more
Popular historian and bestselling author Tom Holland said many Britons will regard the boarding up of Winston Churchill’s statue as ‘sinister’ after it was covered to protect it from further attacks. Mr Holland, 52, also claimed the sight of locals in Poole, Dorset, needing to defend the statue of founder of the Scouting movement Robert Baden-Powell … Read more
The selfie a WW1 German soldier took with camera he stole from a dead British soldier is developed after over 100 years – as historian seeks to reunite Kodak with its original owner’s family A picture of a World War One German soldier has developed after over 100 years German veteran Ernst Behnke took camera … Read more
Winston Churchill cried at the thought of meeting the Queen and branded her a ‘child’ – despite the fact she was 25 and a mother-of-two, a royal historian claims in a new documentary. Professor Kate Williams, who wrote Young Elizabeth: The Making of Our Queen, a biography of the formative years of Elizabeth II, said … Read more
One day, long after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is behind us, historians may see the last few days as the moment when the world tumbled into the abyss. On Thursday, the head of the World Health Organisation declared that mankind stood at a ‘decisive point’. The world faced ‘a crisis, an epidemic that … Read more
We’re walking through a park in London where a Soviet spy once carried out a secret drop – just before he saved the world. ‘Most people have no idea how close we were to nuclear war at that time,’ says Ben Macintyre, author of The Spy And The Traitor, which tells the extraordinary true story … Read more