Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2025 i History Extra

”It was 25 years ago that the Tate Modern opened, Gladiator stormed the box office, Chelsea won the FA Cup – and we published our first ever issue. A lot has changed in the world since then, of course, as well as here at the magazine where we’re now fully embedded in the digital media world. But, a quarter of a century on, we still have the same aim: to present the latest history research and ideas in an accessible and entertaining manner. And we’re also still entirely beholden to you, our readers, without whom this entire enterprise would be somewhat pointless. To mark our 25th anniversary, we reached out to 25 of our favourite historians to pick what they consider to be the key historical discoveries and insights of…

”Few works of 20th-century art have such a distinguished list of past owners” Michael Wood is professor of public history at the University of Manchester. He has presented numerous BBC series. His books include The Story of China (Simon & Schuster, 2021). You’ll find him on X at Michael WoodMV A POSTWAR BABY BOOMER AND A LATE SIXTIES student, in my adult life I naturally grew up optimistic. I believed in progress. I witnessed the civil rights movement, feminism, decolonisation, the beginning of ’Reform and Opening Up’ in China at the end of the seventies, and the break-up of the communist tyranny in Europe a decade later. Not that there weren’t bad things in the world: horrific wars in Vietnam and Biafra (Nigeria), the ravages of international capitalism, the first…

19 May 1925 Malcolm Little is born in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth child of Grenada-born Louise and Georgia-born Earl 29 September 1931 Malcolm’s father, Earl, dies after being hit by a streetcar in Lansing, Michigan. Malcolm comes to believe that white supremacists were responsible December 1939 After years of hardship raising seven children alone, Malcolm’s mother, Louise, is sent to a psychiatric hospital. The children are placed in foster care 1941 Malcolm is adopted by his half-sister Ella Collins, and moves to Roxbury, a black neighbourhood in Boston, to live with her family 1946 Malcolm begins a 10-year sentence for burglary at Charlestown State Prison in Boston. There, he resumes his education and devours a range of books, opening his mind to ideas of black nationalism August 1952 Malcolm is…

”Roosevelt was suspicious of Churchill and Stalin was suspicious of everybody,” recalled British general Sir Leslie Hollis, ”But outwardly they were all the greatest of buddies.” An obvious interpretation of this comment, quoted in Tim Bouverie’s highly readable account of Second World War politics, is that the ’Big Three’ – Franklin D Roosevelt, Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill – played out their ruthless pursuit of national interests under a cynical cloak of personal friendliness. Without denying the power plays clearly involved here, there is also a more optimistic reading – that, in spite of clashes, frictions and occasional stand-up rows, the leaders of the USSR, the US and the UK all understood how to behave diplomatically, even if they didn’t always do so in practice. Bouverie’s focus on diplomatic history…

In this light-touch overview of popular British cultural life, which is clearly a labour of love, Molly Conisbee mixes focused narratives of individual lives with more general accounts of mortality. In doing so, she surveys England’s pre- and post-Reformation religious customs, the rise of funeral directors in the 19th century, and some of today’s ideas of a good death. Frequent diversions lead into fascinating byways, including subjects such as industrialisation, Victorian families, social class, even shopping for mourning dress in the new department stores. A single page can easily encompass Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s works alongside the books of popular Christian writer CS Lewis (best known for his Narnia novels for children), showing how their personal grief influenced their work. Occasional photographic illustrations help to set scenes. Chapters cover ideas…

Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter Harewood House, Leeds / Until 19 October / harewood.org See Regency Britain through the eyes of Jane Austen and JMW Turner this spring amid the Palladian splendour of Harewood House. Marking 250 years since the birth of both creators, this exhibition pairs Turner’s luminous landscapes with Austen’s sharp social commentary, exploring the role of the country house in art and society. Discover rare treasures including Austen’s original Sanditon manuscript and early Turner watercolours – glimpses into the legacy of two cultural giants. The World of King James VI & I National Galleries of Scotland: Portrait, Edinburgh / Until 14 September / nationalgalleries.org Step into the world of King James VI & I (pictured left, in a c1609 locket portrait) to admire royal portraits, jewels…

IN PROFILE Harry Price was a British ghost-hunter, psychic researcher and author who achieved fame through his investigations into paranormal phenomena and for exposing fraudulent mediums. Renowned for his investigation into Borley Rectory – ”the most haunted house in England” – he died of a heart attack at his West Sussex home at the age of 67. ”Price pretty much invented the concept of the ’ghost-hunter’, and much of what we associate with ’the paranormal’ has its roots in his work and the image he cultivated” When did you first hear about Price? I was obsessed by ghosts from an early age. When I came across Price he was already something of a mythical figure, thanks to cases such as the Borley Rectory ’hauntings’ that loomed large in my childhood.…

1. Fascinated by Franklin In this month’s Q&A section, I was intrigued to learn that Benjamin Franklin’s famed glass armonica was later used by German physician Franz Mesmer in his hypnosis-like treatments (page 34). 2. Savoury bravery No childhood party was complete without a bright red, wobbly jelly – but I think I’d have drawn the line at chicken, fish or salad-cream jellies, which I learn were all the rage in the 1970s (History Cookbook, page 85). 3. Is that what I think it is? Our biggest online story this month reveals that an extra penis has been located on the Bayeux Tapestry – on top of the 93 appendages already known to be on there. Head to historyextra.com for all the details.…

”Samba schools used the carnival to foreground overlooked histories” Kavita Puri is a journalist and broadcaster for BBC Radio 4. Her latest BBC Sounds podcast, Three Million, charts the 1943 Bengal Famine and won Gold in the New Podcast category at the 2024 British Podcast Awards I WAS RECENTLY IN RIO DE JANEIRO, IN A warehouse on the outskirts of the city, admiring some of the brightly coloured floats that had featured in this year’s world-famous carnival. Each spring, just before the start of Lent, hundreds of thousands of people attend the parades in the city’s Sambadrome stadium and enjoy watching the floats. Like pieces of art many metres high, they are designed and intricately handmade in Rio’s numerous escolas de samba (samba schools), each strongly identified with a local…

Europe was teetering on the brink of a major rift. Relations between England and continental powers, always fragile, were at risk of fracturing fatally. Often violent confrontations between the Catholic Church and burgeoning Protestant adherents were spreading like wildfire, and the English king seemed determined to add fuel to those flames. Tensions could scarcely be higher. It was at that moment, in 1533, that Hans Holbein the Younger – the most celebrated court painter of the Tudor age – accepted a commission from a recently arrived visitor to the English court. A portrait would be produced, celebrating the wealth of those depicted. But in its extraordinary details, some more obscure and cryptic than others, the picture also reveals important aspects of the sitters and the tempestuous era in which it…

What first intrigued you about the Pope Joan legend? On the surface, the story is of a trickster and adventurer, someone hoodwinking her supposed superiors. That was enough to hook me. As I dug deeper, I found the legend is concerned with things I’ve written about for 20 years: identity, ambition, faith, patriarchy, sex. How much of your protagonist’s journey is rooted in real history? I drew from several medieval versions of the legend to plot her journey. As per the 13th-century chronicler Martin of Poland, my Agnes is born in Mainz of English heritage in the early ninth century. Then, as a young woman, she goes on a journey with a lover while disguised as a man. Other chroniclers provided different details and I took from them when it…

In 2007, I was a somewhat disorientated history student at the University of Jena in central Germany. Raised in small-town eastern Germany, I was in awe of the academics who were showing me how to do real history. Rising stars such as Professor Jörn Leonhard were telling me I showed promise as a historian. I seemed to have found my calling. But there was a problem: I couldn’t see what it was all for. Academic history seemed rather exclusive. Did I really want to dedicate my life to the study of a subject I’d only ever discuss with a handful of like-minded experts? Then a book appeared that changed everything: Christopher Clark’s Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947. Beautifully written and academically brilliant, it did something amazing:…

In late 1924, Reynolds’s Illustrated News ran a piece on modern spiritualism by Arthur Conan Doyle. Already known as an outspoken proponent of spiritualism, Doyle aligned the manifestations of the seance room with biblical marvels, and proclaimed that the New Testament contained no miracle he had not himself seen in the modern day, either ”as described or in some analogous form”. These wonders, Doyle argued, indicated unseen powers and the promise of new ways of understanding the world. The promise of new truths underpins the celebrity of the ’Holy Men’ considered here by Raphael Cormack. Much has been written about Doyle and his belief in (mainly) AngloAmerican mediums and mystics, but there are fewer studies on the rise of the modern occult in the Middle East. Cormack goes some way…

The political battle In July 1945, before the surrender of Japan, British voters went to the polls. The general election brought the Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee, into power with a landslide majority of 146 seats. In the 20-part series Postwar (BBC Radio 4, Monday 9 June), historian David Runciman looks back at a time when the electorate voted for a break with the past. This Week in History (BBC Radio 4 & BBC Sounds, continuing from Wednesday 21 May) is a five-minute slot in which Radio 4 announcers spotlight a trio of stories from the same week in a year from the past. Presented by satirist Heydon Prowse, En-Gulfed (BBC Radio 4, Monday 19 May) explores the relationship between the UK and the Gulf states. It begins with…

Across 1 Hippolytus, say, who headed a group opposed to the third-century pontificate of Callixtus I (8) 5 ____ Russel Wallace formulated his theory of evolution by natural selection independently of, and before publication by, Darwin (6) 10 Flanders city where the treaty ending the war between Britain and the US was signed in 1814 (5) 11 A member of a privileged class in early Rome (9) 12 The first caliph of Islam after the Prophet Muhammad (3,4) 13 In 1912, one of these caused an infamous maritime disaster (7) 14 Former name of the southern African country that unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965 (8) 16/30 across Medieval judicial practice, often using fire or water, to determine a person’s guilt or innocence (5,2,6) 19 Joe ____, anarchic writer…

Tracy Borman ”It was fascinating to explore the hidden meanings within Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors, which is like a freeze-frame on one of the Tudor era’s most turbulent years.” Tracy delves into the symbolic brilliance of the 16th-century masterwork on page 46 Shalina Patel ”Having relished teaching about Sophia Duleep Singh, I pondered a key question: which other hidden figures could I unearth who might connect with history topics I was already teaching my students?” Shalina reveals how teachers make history relevant to today’s students on page 11 Susannah Lyon-Whaley ”If 17th-century women didn’t see foreign shores, they saw their blooms, and may have experienced the expanding world through the exotic plants in their gardens, art, craft and kitchens.” Susannah tells the story of how plants expanded women’s horizons…

The birth of something new May 2000 My cover choice is the very first issue, published in the same month I was born – we share a birthday! The image of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair as babies is very striking – I’m not sure it’s a composition that would find its way onto the magazine’s cover today. And I love the addition of an ’exclusive CD.’ My colleagues might be surprised to learn that I do know what a CD (and even a cassette tape) is! Lauren Good, digital content producer The mother of surprises June 2000 Magazine covers are an editor’s children – they are all your favourites, until the sales figures come in and the next cover has to be planned. As the magazine’s founding editor, I…

Your April cover story on Richard III states that ”history isn’t often made in car parks”. Another car park in which history was made, however, is Keyfield Terrace car park in St Albans. At 10am on 22 May 1455, the Wars of the Roses began there when the Duke of York ordered his army to leave Keyfield, an open space in which the army had briefly encamped, and attack the Lancastrian army in St Albans. Although there is currently no commemoration of this event, a group of local heritage bodies led by the Battlefields Trust is hoping to be able to install a signboard at the site. Peter Burley, Hertfordshire Night shifts I enjoyed your Q&A article in the May issue on collectors of ’night soil’ [a polite term for…

On a balmy spring evening in Omaha, Nebraska, Louise Little answered a knock at the door. She must have been terrified when she opened it and saw several knights of the Ku Klux Klan on horseback, demanding that she produce her husband at once. Louise knew she was in trouble. She was all alone save her three children – Wilfred, Hilda, and Philbert – and pregnant with her fourth child, Malcolm. But as the Klansmen brandished their guns, Louise stood her ground. She refused to let them see fear in her eyes or tell them her husband’s whereabouts. In the end, the men left with a threat on their lips as they rode off into the night. Such moments were par for the course for Louise Little, the first of…

Ruled by the clock William Strachey, an uncle of the Bloomsbury Group writer Lytton Strachey, spent several years in India where he became convinced that only clocks in Calcutta kept accurate time. Returning home, he spent 56 years continuing to live by Calcutta time. Since this was more than five hours ahead of London time, Strachey breakfasted at teatime and lunched each evening. He also rose from his bed in the middle of the night when most of his fellow citizens were still sleeping. Cheese riots In Nottingham in 1766, people rioted over the sale of cheese and one man was killed. Tensions arose when merchants from outside the county bought large numbers of cheeses which locals thought should stay in Nottinghamshire. As they tried to prevent the ’export’ of…

Danny Bird At the heart of your book are a dozen African women, many of whom held immense power and high social standing. Who were they, and when did they live? Paula Akpan I’ve traced the lives of 12 formidable women over the past millennium. The earliest was Princess Mọrèmí of Offa, who rose to rule in Ilé-Ifẹ, in what’s now Nigeria, in the 12th century. From there, we journey through time and across regions, weaving together stories of power, resistance and legacy. Another key figure is the 17th-century Queen Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba – territories today in northern Angola. A master strategist and diplomatic force, they blurred gender conventions: they insisted on being addressed as both king and queen, asserting their sovereignty in a male-dominated world. We also…

In this study of America’s crusade against female prostitution, both at home and abroad, Eva Payne lays out the emotional and moral conflicts that surround sex work. While Empire of Purity is not a book for the casual reader, Payne’s dense academic research is interspersed with fascinating glimpses of individuals caught up in the quest to regulate and criminalise American sex workers, from 1870 to the 1930s. According to Payne, as America grappled with its moral consciousness and attempted to define the New World, the notion of ’Sexual Exceptionalism’ emerged. This was the idea that the American character was built on sexual self-control, free of the vices of Europe. Against this backdrop, women, especially sex workers, found themselves caught up in a global battle between the rights of the individual…

People often think that their beliefs are determined by reality – that they believe things because those things are, in fact, true. Having polled the American public for the past decade about their beliefs, particularly those relating to conspiracy theories, I would argue that the truth sometimes plays little role in determining what people believe. This seems to be especially the case when it comes to political belief. Too often, people prefer to believe comfortable ideas that do not force them to question their pre-existing beliefs. As such, sometimes people adopt beliefs that are true and sometimes they adopt beliefs that are false. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is a major reason why people disagree about ’truth’: they might not be as motivated to find what is…