Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2016 i History Extra

“Welcome to the 200th edition of BBC History Magazine. Ever since our first issue in May 2000, we have brought you the best in popular history writing, presenting the latest thinking in an accessible format. That tradition continues this month where you can read Antony Beevor on Operation Barbarossa (page 20), Tracy Borman on the private lives of Tudor monarchs (page 62), and Dominic Sandbrook’s alternative history of the 1980s (page 35). Plus, for our cover feature, on page 26, Kevin Butcher explains how Roman Britain’s rulers took on the might of Rome and forged the first ever British empire. We’ve also commissioned some special content to mark our 200th edition. On page 47 we’ve asked some of Britain’s leading historians to tackle a number of thorny questions in 200…

In the first half of June 1462, the Ottoman army marched through Wallachia, in present day Romania. Infuriated by the defiance of the Wallachian leader, Prince Vlad, Sultan Mehmed II had decided to teach his northern neighbour a bloody lesson. Yet as the Ottomans advanced, they found the wells poisoned, the roads barbed with traps and the countryside teeming with sufferers from leprosy and plague, whom Vlad had sent south to infect the invaders. Outside the Wallachian capital, Târgoviste, the Ottomans halted for the night. The atmosphere was heavy with tension. And then, in the early hours of 17 June, Vlad attacked, accompanied by several thousand of his best men. As one Wallachian veteran later recalled: “During the entire night he sped like lightning in every direction and caused great…

“Victory in the 1983 election has been interpreted, including by Thatcher at the time, as signifying popular support for her and her policies, and, particularly, enthusiasm for her victory in the Falklands War. Inspection of election statistics raises doubts. The Conservative vote was lower than in 1979, at 13,012,315 compared with 13,697,690. Turnout was down from 76 per cent to 72.7 per cent – then the second lowest since 1945 – not suggesting exceptional enthusiasm for Thatcher or the Falklands. Yet she won far more seats, up from 339 to 397, and her overall majority rose from 43 to 144. Labour, led by left-winger Michael Foot, had supported the war and the Falklanders against invasion by a right-wing Argentinian dictatorship (that had a habit of dropping opponents out of aircraft…

In 1932, a tale of sorrow and stupidity was reported from France by the Dundee Evening Telegraph. In Lyons lived Jean Coiffer, who had kept a cafe in the city. Aged 42, Jean reportedly attempted to poison himself with a dose of Veronal, a barbiturate commonly used as a sleeping aid in the early half of the 20th century. When this proved to be unsuccessful in bringing about his end, he started to eat his personal store of bank notes. However, having swallowed a sum of almost £1,000, he began to choke and natural instinct caused him to cry out. His cries attracted the attention of his neighbours, who immediately called the doctor. On his arrival, the doctors managed to remove some of the money from Jean’s throat, although sadly…

As the proud owner of 199 issues of BBC History Magazine I look forward to hearing the 200th issue plopping onto my doormat as much as I did the first one in May 2000. I have been entertained, informed and (in some cases) infuriated by all that I have read within the pages. My favourite issues include: Revealed, the Secret of the Holy Grail (February 2004), The Face of the Fifties (July, 2004) and Happy Victorians? (Christmas, 2015). But I could go on. There are just too many to list! I congratulate all who have been in any way involved with the publication of this very successful magazine and here’s to the next 200 issues! Eileen Davies, Lincolnshire Editor replies: Thanks for your kind words Eileen, and for being such…

The Historical Trips Debate Saturday 8 October 20.00–21.00 Four expert historians will debate whether there is too much focus on the Second World War in British history. The debate is sponsored by Historical Trips. The H for History Quiz Saturday 8 October From 21.30 Test your historical knowledge – and win prizes too – by taking part in our quiz run in association with H for History. The quiz will be hosted by Julian Humphrys, regular contributor to BBC History Magazine and host of last year’s quiz in Malmesbury. More events to come Some more special events are still due to be added to the schedule. Please keep an eye on historyweekend.com for information about those.…

Iraq’s Kurds, From Flight to Freedom RADIO BBC World Service scheduled for Saturday 21 May In 1991, journalist Jim Muir spent six weeks in Iraq during the Kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein. “I was recording a lot of material, but there were no communications so no way to get them out,” he says. These recordings form the basis of a documentary that tells how the Kurds rose in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, a prelude to the establishment of a Kurdish sovereign enclave. Find our interview with Jim Muir at historyextra.com/bbchistorymagazine…

Dick Cavett’s Vietnam DVD (PBS America, £14.99) Dick Cavett didn’t necessarily intend his chat show to become a place where debate about the Vietnam war was aired, but that’s how things turned out. From 1968, when his show debuted on ABC, through to the fall of Saigon in 1975, it was a subject that came up again and again, both reflecting and shaping a wider debate about whether US soldiers should be fighting in Asia. In one show, for instance, a young veteran named John Kerry, later to succeed Hilary Clinton as US secretary of state, spoke out against the war. Jane Fonda too expressed her opposition to the conflict as Cavett’s guest. This brought him into conflict with authority. An increasingly paranoid Nixon, for example, was concerned enough to…

EVENT Chalke Valley History Festival Wiltshire 27 June–3 July 01722 781133 • cvhf.org.uk The UK’s largest history festival features talks, discussions and debates plus re-enactments and a historic air show. Living history demonstrations and displays will cover 2,000 years of history from the Romans to a Second World War battle with artillery, infantry and tanks in action – including a Sherman and a Cromwell. At the weekend, the airshow has a line-up of historic craft in the air, including an Avro Lancaster, Hawker Hurricane and Spitfire Mk IX. Visitors can take part in activities ranging from arts and crafts activities to a commando training course or sword school. Other displays that offer the chance to get involved range from Tudor music and dance to American War of Independence musketry. There…

Coins are one of the key historical sources for the Roman empire in the tumultuous third century AD, and I’ve always been fascinated by the light they shed on these dark times. • Kevin tells the story of Britain’s rebel emperors on page 26 Researching the lives that the Tudor monarchs lived behind closed doors has been utterly fascinating. The eyewitness accounts of their most intimate body servants cast these iconic kings and queens in a very different (and not always flattering) light. • Tracy investigates the Tudor monarchs’ private lives on page 62 You can argue that the origins of the Cold War lay in 1941 and Stalin’s trauma about being caught out in the way that he was with Operation Barbarossa. That was why he was obsessed about…

David Baldwin, a historian who published widely on medieval history, has died at the age of 69. Baldwin worked as a lecturer and tutor at the universities of Nottingham and Leicester, and wrote books on subjects as diverse as Henry VIII and Robin Hood. Yet it is for his work on Richard III that he may be most remembered – notably his 1986 prediction that the king’s remains might be found on the former site of the church of the Grey Friars in Leicester. The claim was made almost three decades before the discovery of Richard’s bones on that site in 2012. Historian and author David Horspool said: “With his pioneering article, David Baldwin set the ball rolling for the most famous archaeological discovery in recent memory. He had a…

@HistoryExtra: Who do you think was the best monarch in history and why? Alexandra Fiada Alexander the Great by far! The only conqueror in history who was loved by his subjects – who genuinely mourned his death – and who disseminated culture and civilization instead of destroying them Lisa Bolle Queen Victoria, who managed to keep Great Britain together during one of the biggest transformations in history, the industrial revolution @natesaint Henry II, a king who was born a count but managed to secure the crown then turned a divided country into an empire Joel Darlington Pharaoh Hatshepsut. She successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority and her reign saw one of ancient Egypt’s most prolific building periods @Smabs2 Elizabeth I for proving…

It appears to be an accepted fact that cultural property will be damaged. Where there is war, places and things get destroyed The beginning was not auspicious. The exchange – “Isn’t there some archaeology that we should be avoiding?” “Yes, I know a bloke, I’ll ask him at the weekend” – had taken place in the Ministry of Defence on 29 January 2003, just two months before the USA/UK-led coalition invaded Iraq to enforce ‘regime change’. I was that bloke: the wrong person – I knew little of the detailed archaeology of the region – at the wrong time. Most coalition troops were already ‘in theatre’, objectives set, their maps in hand (with no museums, libraries, archives or archaeological sites marked), and with little appetite for additional tasks, let alone…

“Britain still has something to offer the world in the crucial years ahead” “We all stand or fall now on a bigger issue still, the climate – the great elephant in our room” “It’s hard to believe that this is the 200th edition of BBC History Magazine. The first issue saw the light of day at the dawn of the new millennium in 2000. Since then it has opened the world of history to the general reader, and has grown in strength with the widest spectrum of articles and debate, not least by asking top specialists to make complex ideas clear, accessible and exciting. And what great historical changes we have seen since the balmy days of 2000, the summer of the Sydney Olympics and Harry Potter and the Goblet…

If you’re a subscriber to BBC History Magazine , you can take advantage of a reduced rate for all tickets. You will need your subscriber number when purchasing. (You can find this on the address label of your magazine). If you have a digital subscription, please forward your subscription order confirmation to events.team@immediate.co.uk and our events team will supply you with a code for reduced rate tickets. If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can subscribe by calling 0844 844 0250** or visiting historyextra.com/bbc-historymagazine/subscribe. You’ll receive your subscription number 15 minutes after subscribing and can then buy tickets at the subscriber price. If you take out a digital subscription please contact us (see above) for a code, which we’ll issue as soon as possible. You will be sent…

A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby by Joe Moshenska Heinemann, 576 pages, £20 As with many of his privileged contemporaries, Kenelm Digby lived a life of excitement, compromise and danger, burdened by a horrifying past. The skeleton in the closet was his father’s execution for his part in the gunpowder plot. The son’s legacy was divided: on the one hand he remained a faithful Catholic and made little effort to disguise his faith; on the other he was a patriot, who looked back to Elizabethan heroes who served their queen by conquering new lands for her. In 1627, aged just 24, the scholarly Digby commissioned a small fleet of boats, and set out on a quest to win glory for king and country and…

The Crimson Petal and the White Michel Faber (2002) Once described as “the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century”, Faber’s epic work traces the history of Sugar, a resourceful and strong-minded prostitute, as she journeys through the class-ridden society of Victorian London. The Night Watch Sarah Waters (2006) Sarah Waters’ story of love and secrets in 1940s London moves cleverly back in time, opening in 1947 with her central characters adrift in postwar London and then returning, first to 1944 and then to 1941, to reveal the experiences that have shaped them. Imperium Robert Harris (2006) In the first of Harris’s magnificent sequence of novels devoted to the Roman orator and politician Cicero, he brings the grandeur and corruption of Republican Rome vividly to life as his hero…

“Whatever your take on Louis, his story makes for fantastic drama” Versailles TV , BBC Two scheduled for late May Architecture as a weapon. At first glance, it’s not the most promising theme for drama, but it’s nonetheless central to Versailles, a big-budget historical epic that explores how and why France’s Louis XIV (1638–1715), whom we meet in his 20s, came to construct his vast palace just outside Paris. “It’s such an unexpected move, it’s like moving the Houses of Parliament to Brighton,” writer and producer David Wolstencroft tells BBC History Magazine. “The mass of opposition [this causes] and the pattern interruption that represents – it’s rather brilliant.” The palace was both a way to get away from the Parisian power bases of his ministers and other vested interests, and…

“Hundreds of desperate rebels were holed up in Kenilworth Castle, in what was one of the longest sieges in English history” NICHOLAS VINCENT Fragrant Elizabethan gardens, check. Rolling Warwickshire countryside, check. Dramatic medieval ruins basking in the sunshine, check. To a lover of history – and a few hours of unbridled tranquility – a visit to Kenilworth Castle on an unseasonably warm spring morning can seem like heaven. It wasn’t always like this though. Rewind the clock seven and a half centuries to 1266 and this place would have been a vision of hell. Back then, the great Norman keep that dominates the landscape wouldn’t have been home to carefree day-trippers but hundreds of desperate rebels, holed up in what was one of the longest sieges in English history. These…

“Nepal has its own very distinctive blend of animism, Hinduism and Buddhism, manifested in unique architecture” Legend has it that the Kathmandu valley was once filled by a lake. In the centre of the lake grew a vast sacred lotus flower, encrusted with diamonds and rubies, with a fire burning at its centre. This was a manifestation of divinity, right at the heart of Nepal – and the seed of the country’s capital, Kathmandu. Today, the city has all the hallmarks of a rapidly developing Asian city, with new buildings constructed on layers of myth, legend and history. Kathmandu has tripled in size since 1996, when I first visited as a backpacker. City-dwellers used to be able to admire the peaks of the Himalayas ranged on the northern horizon. Now…

1. Which event of 1385 caused a five-year legal wrangle between Richard Scrope and Robert Grosvenor? 2. Which word, meaning showy but of low quality, is derived from the cheap lace sold at St Audrey’s Fair in Ely. 3. Why might Britain’s 1st Royal Dragoons have been embarrassed about their colonel-in-chief at the outbreak of the First World War? 4. What was originally founded in 1881 as the ‘Fenian Office’? 5. How is the Empress Matilda said to have escaped from the besieged Oxford Castle at Christmas 1142? 6. What is this called and what does it commemorate? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. They turned up on campaign with the same coat of arms 2. Tawdry 3. It was Germany’s kaiser Wilhelm II 4. The Special Branch 5. By wrapping herself in…

Short on flavour To celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday (and, a more modest achievement, this magazine’s 200th issue), it was time to make a cake. For inspiration I turned to 1953, Her Majesty’s coronation year – and the year that sugar and sweets were finally de-rationed after the Second World War. This Springtime Fancy cake came from an advert for Dexo, a US brand of vegetable shortening (used in place of butter). New to the UK at the time, vegetable shortening later became less popular, but is still available. INGREDIENTS American cup measures are kept for authenticity: • ½ cup of non-dairy vegetable shortening• 2 cups plain flour• 2½ tsps baking powder• 1 tsp salt• 1½ cups sugar• 1 cup milk• 1 tsp vanilla• 2 eggs, unbeaten• icing (cream together 5ozbutter,10ozicing sugarandfood colouring) decorated with marshmallows and gums METHOD…

A Roman villa has been unearthed in a garden The remains of an elaborate Roman villa have been found by chance by a Wiltshire homeowner digging to lay cables in his garden. The house, built between AD 175 and 220, is one of the largest of its kind found in the UK and is thought to have remained undisturbed since its collapse 1,400 years ago. Other finds at the site near the village of Tisbury include pottery and hundreds of oysters, suggesting that the villa had wealthy owners. Austrian o cials plan to seize Hitler’s house The house in which Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was born is to be claimed by the Austrian government in order to stop it becoming a site of interest to fascist sympathisers. The property, in…

For the Roman empire, the third century AD was a time of political unrest, usurpations and barbarian invasions. For a few decades it looked as if the Roman empire was on the brink of disintegration as rival emperors struggled for supreme power or declared themselves independent. Contemporary historical sources are scarce. Historians are often forced to reconstruct events of the period from chance finds – coins, inscriptions and the occasional references in ancient literature. The reigns of Carausius and Allectus are no exception. For much of the third century, Britain survived the troubles relatively unscathed. There are even signs of the province’s increasing self-sufficiency and prosperity. From AD 260–73 it became part of a breakaway empire established in Gaul under the rebel emperors Postumus, Victorinus and then Tetricus. In the…

“You want to go home? Fools! The home you left is in the past, buried in the abyss of time! There’s a different world out there, beyond these walls! Do you hear? A different world!” In the stirring ending to the historical drama The Smoke of Home, set in the Thirty Years’ War, Casselius, one of the main protagonists, shatters the illusions of his fellow prisoners: there will be no return to the peace and plenty of their prewar lives. These lines take on new meaning when we consider that they were written in a Second World War ghetto 40 miles north-west of Prague called Theresienstadt. Years before the end of the war, the play’s young Czech-Jewish authors explored a question that few of their own fellow prisoners could bear…

Fletcher maintains a standard all history books should aim for The Black Prince of Florence by Catherine Fletcher The Bodley Head, 336 pages, £20 The title of this book may sound familiar. The Black Prince was a novel by Iris Murdoch, and is the name often given to Hamlet on account of his black mourning garments and the darkness of his world. Catherine Fletcher’s Black Prince inhabits a world of darkness, treachery and violence, but the title refers, in part, to the possibility that this 16th-century Duke of Florence was at least one-quarter black African. It is a terrific piece of history. Fletcher can really write and is a ruddy good historian. There is much in the story of Alessandro de’ Medici that involves the judicious and sensitive reading of…

The Navy’s Bloodiest Day TV BBC Two, scheduled for late May A century ago, on 31 May 1916, the Royal Navy and the German Imperial Fleet clashed in the waters off Denmark’s Jutland peninsula. The British, outnumbering the Germans by 151 ships to 99, expected victory, but by the end of the battle the navy had lost 14 ships and more than 6,000 men. In a one-off documentary, Dan Snow, engineer Shini Somara and naval historian Nick Hewitt analyse what occurred. Plus, in The Centenary of the Battle of Jutland (BBC One, 31 May), there’s full coverage of commemoration events. In Jutland: The Battle that Won the War (Radio 4, May), Lord West offers his take on the battle.…

1 Westminster Hall, LONDON Where the barons confronted Henry Westminster Hall has witnessed its fair share of historic incidents since it was built in 1097, perhaps none more sensational than when, in 1258, leading barons stormed in and demanded that Henry III change the way he ran the country. They got their way – temporarily – but it wasn’t enough to prevent war. parliament.uk 2 Rochester Castle KENT Where loyalist forces were besieged Kenilworth Castle wasn’t the only fortification to be besieged in the Second Barons’ War. In 1264, Simon de Montfort’s army attempted to prise out loyalist forces – led by the royal constable Roger de Leybourne – holed up in Rochester. They failed but would soon exact revenge at Lewes. english-heritage.org.uk 3 Lewes Castle EAST SUSSEX Where Henry…

BEST TIME TO GO The monsoon drenches Nepal between June and September. Visit at any other time for dry weather, though nights can be bitterly cold in midwinter. October and November are popular months for trekking, while March and April bring colourful rhododendron blossoms. GETTING THERE There are no direct flights to Kathmandu from the UK. The most convenient routes involve a change in the Middle East or Delhi. WHAT TO PACK Bring both light clothes for the daytime (ideally with long sleeves and legs, for visiting temples) and warm layers for the evenings; Kathmandu sits at an altitude of 1,400m and can get chilly at night. WHAT TO BRING BACK Local crafts – painted Buddhist thangkas and sculptures – make excellent souvenirs. READERS’ VIEWS Be aware that many monuments…

“He really understood politics. He was constantly trying to cobble together compromises that would deliver votes to push through legislation. He was the most amazing modern politician” Lyndon Johnson, also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, in office from 1963–69. The Texan assumed the presidency on John F Kennedy’s assassination, and went on to win a landslide victory over the Republicans in the 1964 election. Johnson’s presidency saw the introduction of his ‘Great Society’ legislation, aimed at attacking poverty and outlawing racial discrimination. But his popularity nose-dived after he escalated US involvement in the Vietnam War, and he decided not to seek the Democratic US presidential nomination in 1968. He died of a heart attack aged 64. When did you first hear about Lyndon Johnson?…