Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2025 i History Extra

“Some historical mysteries seem destined to remain forever unsolved. After a distance of several centuries, can we really expect to turn up new pieces of evidence that might lay matters to rest? Well, in the case of the princes in the Tower, some new evidence has emerged – and while it doesn't completely solve the crime, it certainly appears to strengthen the case against a few individuals. For our cover feature (page 29) we've interviewed Professor Tim Thornton, who made the discovery, alongside the popular historian Tracy Borman who has worked with Professor Thornton on the story. I have no doubt you will have your own thoughts, so do please write in and let us know. In the next few weeks, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th…

RECENTLY I ADMIRED A DAGGER AND SCABBARD set with 1,685 rubies, 271 unpolished diamonds and 62 emeralds – probably one of the most exquisite you will ever see. It is one of more than 200 objects showcased in a breathtaking new exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum: The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence. (In the interests of transparency, a declaration: I am a trustee at the V&A.) This dazzling collection, ranging from miniatures and mother-of-pearl cabinets to intricate carpets and bronzeware, draws primarily from the courts of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Representing three generations of the same family, and ruling from 1556 to 1658, they are considered by many to be the three greatest emperors of the Mughal dynasty. The exhibition celebrates what curators describe as the…

c1254 Marco Polo is born in Venice to a wealthy merchant. His mother dies when he is young and he is raised by extended family 1269 Marco's father, Niccolò, and uncle Maffeo – both merchants – return to Venice after having visited the court of the Mongol leader Kublai Khan 1271 Niccolò, Maffeo and Marco set out on a new expedition. It's believed that their journey east takes them through Iran, Afghanistan and on to China c1275 According to Marco's account of his travels, the Polos arrive at Kublai Khan's summer capital of Shangdu in modern-day north-eastern China c1275–c1292 In Marco's words, he is appointed to serve as Kublai's foreign emissary and spends the next 17 years travelling extensively across China c1292 The Polos escort a Mongol princess to Persia,…

■ 1861–65 ■ REPUBLICAN In his own era, Abraham Lincoln acquired a mythic status as the 'Saviour of the United States' and 'Great Emancipator'. His death, from a shot fired on Good Friday, saw him canonised as the martyr of the glorious Union. Yet even stripping away the myth, most scholars still rank him the best American president. When Lincoln took office, seven slaveholding states had already launched a separate Confederacy. Civil war followed. Inexperienced in executive and military leadership, the wartime president faced sustained criticism but drew on formidable self-reliance and indomitable physical strength. He grew in office. Essential to his power were his tenacious nationalism, strategic wisdom, political shrewdness and skill in communication. The American republic's unique mission, Lincoln insisted, lay in its ideological freight of liberty and…

■ 1963–69 ■ DEMOCRAT “Power is where power goes,” was the mantra of Lyndon Baines Johnson from his early days as a New Deal bureaucrat and teacher through to his time as president of the US. LBJ, as he was often known, was a commanding and intimidating figure who handed out the 'Johnson treatment' in his pursuit of power and change in America. A tall man, he loomed over whoever he was seeking to impress, frighten or cajole into supporting him or his policies. LBJ was a member of Congress from 1937 until 1961; he graduated from the House to the Senate in 1948 and became a majority leader in 1955. His time in Congress would be key to his effectiveness as a president who used procedure, patronage and his…

Recalling her career as a suffragette arsonist and Houdini-like escapologist in interviews later in her life, Lilian Lenton lit up as if a fire had been started in her heart. “To say I enjoyed making fires sounds rather awful,” she later admitted. “But it really was lovely to find that you'd been successful – that the thing really had burned down and that you hadn't got caught. There it was blazing, and there we were in the glare of the lights…” Lilian Ida Lenton was one of the youngest, yet most militant, of suffragettes in the three years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. Her suffragette career was daring, dangerous and dramatic, reported in newspapers around the country. The new half-penny dailies, with their half-tone photographs…

“Our secretaries need only two things: good legs and a good upbringing,” said MI6 chief Dick White in 1956. Claire Hubbard-Hall's well-researched and eloquently written book gives the lie to this misogynist fallacy, telling the oft untold stories of women who formed the backbone of MI5, MI6 and other secretive organisations during both world wars – tales of conspiracy, spying and political intrigue. The author takes readers on a journey into the innermost workings of Britain's intelligence agencies. She replaces the often repetitive 'bang-bang-bang' of spies' guns with the 'clackety-clack-clack' of their typewriters – and, in doing so, highlights the importance of women's roles in administrative offices as well as their operational work. Some female spies are familiar, such as the infamous Mata Hari, but Hubbard-Hall brings other women into…

RECIPE Serves: 6–8 Difficulty: 6/10 Time taken: 3 hours INGREDIENTS For shortcrust pastry 185g plain flour 2 tsp caster sugar Pinch of salt 115g cold unsalted butter 2–3 tbsp very cold water For filling 480g cottage cheese 200g ricotta cheese 100g caster sugar 4 egg whites 2–3 tbsp dried elderflowers ½ tbsp rosewater METHOD 1. For pastry, mix flour, caster sugar and salt. 2. Rub butter into the mixture with your fingertips until it resembles crumbs. 3. Gradually add in cold water with a rubber spatula until mixture starts to clump. 4. Tip it out and make a dome shape. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for minimum 1 hour. 5. Roll out the pastry to about 0.5cm thick and lay over a lined cake or tart dish. Trim, leaving 1cm overhanging; tuck this under. 6. Refrigerate…

Across 1 He succeeded to Japan's Chrysanthemum Throne in 1989 (7) 5 Members of the Scottish/English royal line that was superseded by the house of Hanover (7) 10 Name of several Ottoman sultans, the first of whom (1512–20) added Syria and Egypt to his empire (5) 11 Traditional personification of the US, roughly equivalent to Britain's John Bull (5,3) 12 The last British monarch of the house of Hanover (8) 13 Protected in the manner of, for example, Bodiam and Leeds castles (6) 14 Prehistoric ritual enclosures (6) 16 The ____ of Whitby (AD 664) saw the crucial decision of the English church to follow Roman rather than Celtic doctrine (5) 18 Creator and first leader of the Soviet Union, whose career was ended by a series of strokes (5) 20 Cochise and Geronimo are two famed leaders of…

1. Global wealth gap In Kavita Puri's Hidden Histories column (page 18) she writes that the Mughal empire's annual revenue in the early 17th century was “100 times greater than that of England and Scotland under James VI & I”. 2. Blast from the past Following the recent ravages of Storm Bert, it was interesting to read about the first recorded tornado in England, which struck in the late 11th century and apparently destroyed 600 houses (Q&A, page 55). 3. A royal first From this month's History Hero (page 90), I discovered that the University of Cambridge only awarded full degrees to women in 1948. Interestingly, the first recipient was Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.…

LETTERS I was interested to read Eugene Byrne's piece on marathon dancing (Q&A, December). As a BBC radio presenter, I interviewed the world champion marathon dancer in 1988. He had danced for 3,501 hours over 145 days in 1932 at the end of Million Dollar Pier in Atlantic City. In more easily understood terms, that's almost five months of dancing. He still holds the record, as he likely will forever – and he is perhaps better known as 1950s singer Frankie Laine (pictured below in 1951). When I asked him why he had made the attempt, his answer was very simple: the money and the food, along with the fact it got him noticed and helped him secure a foothold in the music industry as a singer. It seems to have…

Ellie Cawthorne The fate of the princes in the Tower is one of the most controversial episodes in British history. And, Tim, you've made some discoveries that could potentially give us a new understanding of what happened to the princes more than five centuries ago. So what initially drew you to this story? Tim Thornton You're right: the princes' fate is one of the greatest of all historical mysteries, and I've been investigating it all of my career, which I'm terrified to admit is now about 30 years! Previous attempts to resolve the mystery have focused on the period leading up to the moment the princes vanished after being moved to the Tower of London by Richard III. For most historians, the summer of 1483 – when they disappeared from…

■ 1901–09 ■ REPUBLICAN If Teddy Roosevelt had not been the president, he would merely have been one of the most interesting men to ever live. The 26th president was a cattle rancher, a taxidermist, a Brazilian explorer, an amateur boxer, a historian who wrote The Naval War of 1812, and a Noble Peace Prize winner for his help in bringing an end to the Russo-Japanese War. Admittedly, he did not end the Civil War, like Lincoln. But Lincoln did not take a bullet to the chest and still finish a campaign speech, as Roosevelt did. When Lincoln took a bullet, he famously died. Prior to being president, Roosevelt was a war hero. He was known for his prominent role with the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. This group…

■ 1981–89 ■ REPUBLICAN Ability and achievement come in many forms. The innovators and the explorers of the possibilities of politics and government win the most praise. But it is also necessary to honour the stabilisers, and Ronald Reagan, the much-mocked elderly ex-actor from California, was one of the greatest. America and the west were in grave difficulties at the end of the 1970s. Vietnam and Watergate had hollowed out confidence in American power and politics, and the two oil shocks of the 1970s had destabilised the economy and public finances, contributing to a sense of decline. At the end of the decade, the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan took this malaise further. What might have come next was a matter of hazard – and, indeed, in…

Jacobean drama Released last year, Sky Atlantic's historical drama Mary & George told the story of the ambitious mother-and-son duo who transformed the early Stuart court in England. Benjamin Woolley, an expert on the Villiers family, joined us to discuss their impact and to address rumours about George's role in the death of James VI & I. historyextra.com/mary-george-pod Regal relationships James VI & I (left) shared an intimate bond with George Villiers, who was his favourite at court as well as his reputed lover. Theirs was an intense and complicated relationship that profoundly influenced the Stuart monarchy. In this 2024 episode from our Life of the Week series, historian Joseph Ellis unpacks James's dramatic life and pivotal reign. historyextra.com/king-james-pod Dynastic shift Elizabeth I's death in 1603 signalled the demise of…

It was my mother who first introduced me to this book. She was moved by the moment at which Carolyn Steedman discovers that her birth certificate erroneously records her parents as married. As a family with its share of historical illegitimacy and wrangling with respectability politics, the experience rang true to us both. When I became a historian, Steedman's careful narration of the way that archives can elide the truth – not just through gaps and silences, but through the lies of human lives – rang in my ears as I sat down in the National Archives. Steedman's text was trailblazing in the way that it wove together family history and History (capital H) into a compelling narrative of archival and personal discovery. This could have taken the form of…

I See His Blood Upon the Rose The MAC, Belfast / Until 30 March 2025 / themaclive.com This exhibition examines the history of flowers in art, exploring their adoption as symbols of political influence and revolution across four centuries. From 17th-century still lifes to the Vietnam War, it showcases the works of contemporary and historical artists from Rachel Ruysch to Tracy Emin, exploring themes of love, grief and faith. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c1504 The Royal Academy, London / Until 16 February 2025 / royalacademy.org.uk Explore the intense artistic rivalry between Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and their profound influence on Raphael, through more than 40 master-pieces. Highlights include Michelangelo's Taddei Tondo, Leonardo's Burlington House Cartoon (pictured) and Raphael's Bridgewater Madonna. Visitors will uncover stories of competition, collaboration and groundbreaking…

CRIME Murder sensation On 24 March 1953, three bodies were found inside the walls of a flat in Notting Hill. Kate Summerscale reveals how the Rillington Place murders became a national obsession, and what the case tells us about life in postwar London. 17TH CENTURY After the regicide It was an era of turbulence and transformation – so why is Britain's Republican decade not talked about more? Alice Hunt argues that it is one of the most significant eras in British history – and challenges some myths about Oliver Cromwell in the process. CHINESE HISTORY Ruler of the waves Genghis Khan may have built a formidable land empire, but his grandson Kublai Khan mastered the seas. Jack Weatherford reveals how a nomadic leader came to have such a formidable navy…

Lucy Worsley “Why did Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder conspirators choose violence? It's helpful to see them through the filter of what we know about the radicalisation of extremists today.” Lucy considers why the gunpowder plotters of 1605 resorted to terror on page 40 Matthew Gabriele “The battle of Fontenoy shook the Carolingian empire and its participants to the core, creating reverberations that lasted for generations.” Matthew tells the story (with David M Perry) of a ninth-century clash that reshaped Europe on page 70 Diane Atkinson ”Owing to her longevity and expertise at handling the media, we know more about the suffragette arsonist Lilian Lenton than many other people who campaigned for the vote. There she is in the BBC archives, proudly reliving those giddy years.” Diane explores Lenton's remarkable…

There are some historical landscapes that never let go of their hold on your imagination. One in particular has haunted me since I was a boy: Mesopotamia, about which I first read in Leonard Cottrell's book Land of the Two Rivers and then later in Samuel Noah Kramer's History Begins at Sumer. That feeling only intensified when I first went there in the late 1980s at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. Here civilisation first arose on Earth, yet the achievements of humanity have been wiped out time and again by violence and war, by climate change, and by the tides of history. Nowhere, to my mind, speaks more eloquently of the fragility of civilisation. South Iraq, the heartland of cities, is now a desolate land of parched yellow sand…

STUARTS “Buckingham emerges from Scapegoat as character sacrificed in the brutal cut and thrust of Stuart politics“ Joseph Ellis devours a new biography of a man who was the favourite of two Stuart kings ▶ page 74 ANCIENT EGYPT “Toby Wilkinson has made a valuable contribution to Hellenistic scholarship” Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones considers a new history of the Ptolemaic dynasty ▶ page 76 POLITICAL “This stands out as the best single-volume analysis of Kennedy's life and presidency” Iwan Morgan lauds an impressive new biography of JFK ▶ page 78 INTERVIEW Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry examine a crucial medieval civil war ▶ page 70 “The battle created reverberations that lasted for generations” David Musgrove: Let's begin with the battle of Fontenoy in 841. What happened there and why was it…

The Ptolemaic dynasty, the last royal house to rule Egypt before its submersion into the Roman empire, is not well known outside scholarly circles. Even among academics the Ptolemies are viewed with trepidation. Classicists do not know what to do with them, while Egyptologists prefer to ignore them. Suddenly, though, three popular books on the Ptolemaic dynasty have appeared. There's my own book, which looks at all the Cleopatras other histories prefer to leave out. Second, the narrative of Romanist-cum-Egyptologist Guy de la Bédoyère's The Fall of Egypt and the Rise of Rome keeps Rome's ultimate triumph in view. Lastly – and wonderfully – there is this book by Toby Wilkinson, one of our leading and most popular Egyptologists. Wilkinson does a fine job – as anyone who wants to…

For anyone questioning whether we need another book on one of the most writtenabout US presidents, Mark White's study provides a resoundingly affirmative response. Its portrayal of JFK's youthful, optimistic and energetic leadership offers a timely contrast to the White House gerontocracy of recent years. In popular American memory, Kennedy's assassination created the aura of a fallen hero who might otherwise have guided the nation through the turbulent 1960s without it having to endure the shattering effects of the Vietnam War, racial conflict and political violence. As White demonstrates, however, his thousand-day tenure was about more than promise, because it also featured substantive achievements at home and abroad. This important study can be viewed as a post-revisionist riposte both to the early hagiography of Kennedy administration insiders that characterised JFK…

To quote the author Katherine Rundell, for children Christmas has “a surfeit of magic and limitless possibility”. Along with Mark Gatiss and Lemn Sissay, Rundell is one of the writers speaking to Cerys Matthews for Archive on 4: A Child's Christmas (Saturday 21 December, BBC Radio 4), a documentary that charts how writers have captured the big day from a child's perspective. Among other Archive on 4 offerings, The Dome (Saturday 28 December) finds Paul Merton looking back at the construction of the Millennium Dome. It was a building meant to convey turn-of-the-century optimism, yet became associated with scepticism and the wasting of public money. For Archive on 4: Upon the Education of the People (Saturday 4 January), the likes of Joan Bakewell (pictured) and Michael Rosen explore the after-effects…

Fringed by turquoise seas and silver-sand beaches, to visitors the Scilly archipelago looks like a Caribbean paradise. As the south-westernmost outposts of England, they've always been important strategically and as a staging post for military and merchant ships. But look out to sea and you'll clock Scilly's dark underside – treacherous rocks with savage names like Hell Bay, Crebinicks and Hellweathers, which have wrecked more than 1,000 vessels. Until the late 18th century, the carnage on Scilly's rocks was compounded by our inability to calculate longitude, plus inaccurate navigational charts and instruments. The only lighthouse – on St Agnes, Scilly's most south-westerly inhabited island – was on land, so effectively lured ships onto its surrounding rocks. In bad weather its light, mainly coal-fired, was invisible beyond three miles. With so…

1917–96 IN PROFILE Joan Clarke MBE worked as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. Alongside Alan Turing, to whom she was briefly engaged, she played a key role in the Enigma project decrypting German secret communications, which contributed to Allied victory in the battle of the Atlantic. After the war she worked at GCHQ until 1977. In 2024, a blue plaque was unveiled at her childhood home in West Dulwich, London. “She was recruited by Bletchley Park because of her academic brilliance, and was dogged in her codebreaking work there” When did you first hear about Clarke? I became aware of her vital wartime work at Bletchley Park through the 2014 film The Imitation Game, in which she was played by Keira Knightley. Alan Turing's hugely…