Innholdsfortegnelse for Christmas 2025 i History Extra

"Every Christmas morning my kids thunder down the stairs, desperate to see what new toys have magically arrived for them in the night. But who exactly is the mysterious gift giver? In our house it’s always been Father Christmas, but in yours it might be Santa Claus, or perhaps a blending of the two. So how have these two festive favourites come to compete for our attentions at this time of the year? One man who has the answer is the historian Thomas Ruys Smith, and in his feature this month he charts a centuries-long, transatlantic tale, with conclusions that might well surprise you. You’ll find it on page 34. For our cover feature this month we’re revisiting the works of Jane Austen as we approach the 250th anniversary of…

"Eighty years on, it's time that these 3 million lives are remembered" IN A MUSEUM IN MANCHESTER, ON AN AUTUMN evening just a few weeks ago, history was made. I joined a group of people who had gathered to pay their respects to casualties of a long-overlooked episode of the Second World War. Curators, students, interested locals and descendants of those involved milled around, drinking chai, looking at pictures in a temporary exhibition. Organisers believe this was the first event to commemorate the estimated 3 million victims of the 1943 Bengal Famine. Those who died were Indians, but they were also British subjects. It’s one of the largest losses of civilian life among the Allies – yet there isn’t a memorial, a museum or even a plaque to them anywhere…

Accompanies the fourth series of Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley 1 A female bodysnatcher? At a time when selling human bodies to anatomy schools reaped hefty payouts, some desperate criminals killed to get their hands on fresh corpses. Was Elizabeth Ross one such grasping murderer? In the early 19th century, ‘resurrection men’ dug up recently buried corpses to meet the huge demand for cadavers to use in teaching and surgical practice. Others were too impatient to wait for someone to die before snatching a body – and took matters into their own hands. Between 1828 and 1831, William Burke (operating with accomplice William Hare) in Edinburgh, and John Bishop and Thomas Williams in London, were convicted and hanged for murdering numerous people in order to sell their bodies to anatomy…

Food for thought ‘Protein Man’ was the nickname of an eccentric chap, real name Stanley Green, who walked the streets of central London between 1969 and 1993, carrying a giant placard advertising the benefits of “protein wisdom”. His motto was “less lust by less protein”: he believed that a low-protein diet would reduce libido and thus somehow make people happier. After his death in 1993, the Museum of London acquired his placards and the pamphlets he had printed to promulgate his ideas. Seeing double In his later years, the 18th-century Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus suffered from the delusion that he had a double – a second version of himself who shared his life. This second Carl Linnaeus, whom only he could see, would mirror his activities. On one occasion, he…

Glasgow, 1942. The Carl Rosa Opera Company was in town to perform Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Tickets had been snapped up by local people – including many who didn’t really know what an opera was. The soprano Joan Hammond, who sang the title role that night, later recalled that there were always newcomers in the audience wherever the Carl Rosa performed, searching for something different to do – but also for some kind of transcendental escapism. Invariably, they cheered the singers to the rafters. Surprising though it may seem to us today, opera was hugely popular during the Second World War. This was part of a broader surge of interest among the British in the so-called high arts – a sudden and rather urgent desire to ‘become cultured’ and to enjoy…

1. Bread for war In this month’s Q&A, I was intrigued to read that the famed Confederate general Stonewall Jackson adopted a highly unusual diet in his youth, consisting almost entirely of stale bread (page 40). 2. Brains before beauty Prema Arasu’s history of sea monsters is full of fascinating details, such as the fact that in Homer’s Odyssey the sirens tempt the sailors with the promise of knowledge rather than their alluring forms (page 49). 3. Missing monuments I was surprised to read in Kavita Puri’s Hidden Histories column that, despite the scale of the losses, there is no memorial to the 1943 Bengal Famine anywhere in the world (page 16).…

Memories of Malaya I read Kavita Puri’s article on the Second World War in Asia (Hidden Histories, December) with great interest. I have often heard my father, V Shankar Charry, talk about his wartime experiences as a small boy in Johor Bahru, Malaya [now Malaysia]. He remembers the Japanese occupation of 1942, after the defeat of Indian and Australian forces fighting for the British. His family home was taken over by the Japanese and, though my grandfather tried to maintain fairly cordial relations with their officers for the safety of his family, my father remembers some looting and a severe shortage of food. A specific memory that endures is of one young Australian prisoner of war being ordered by a Japanese officer to climb a coconut tree – a feat…

The Barbary corsair ship appeared suddenly on the horizon, bristling with cannon. Its decks swarming with armed men, it sliced through the waves at a clip that its quarry – the British merchant ship Ann – could not match. At that time, in the mid-18th century, such pirate attacks were violent, bloody affairs; if the Ann’s captain tried to resist, he would be risking the lives of his crew, his passengers and himself, and would likely see his ship sunk. He surrendered. The corsair captain swaggered aboard the British vessel without firing a shot, and surveyed his captives. He was one of the infamous Sallee Rovers operating out of Salé, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, who sold any Europeans they captured into slavery. The captain ordered the Ann’s four…

The Last Days of Pompeii: The Immersive Experience Immerse LDN / Until 15 March 2026 / pompeii-experience.com Delve into the culture of daily Roman life, witness the momentous eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and follow its fallout in Immerse LDN’s new exhibition. In a blend of cutting-edge technology and vivid storytelling, this exhibition launches visitors into Pompeii’s rich history with recreations of the ancient city’s beautiful pre-eruption landscape, a 360-degree virtual reality Roman amphitheatre experience, and a digital metaverse recreating Pompeii’s ‘Villa of Mysteries’. Spies, Lies and Deception IWM North / 29 Nov 2025 - 31 August 2026 / iwm.org.uk What is the price of espionage and deception? IWM North’s latest exhibition brings its audience face-to-face with this question as it guides you through the history of espionage since the First…

Across 1 UK tabloid newspaper founded in Manchester in 1909, merged with the Daily Mail in 1971 (6) 5 China enforced its long-held claim over this territory in 1950 (5) 8 Tokugawa ____, founder of Japan’s last shogunate in 1603 (6) 11/10/30 Police force established in the mid-18th century, precursor of Scotland Yard (3,6,7) 12 Broad term for a descendant of the Jewish patriarch Jacob (9) 13 Co-author of The Communist Manifesto (1848) (4) 14 British monarch who was the first head of the Commonwealth (6,2) 15 Chittaranjan ____, founder of the Swaraj (‘Self rule’) party in Bengal (3) 16 The battle of Patay (1429) was a major success for the French in Joan of Arc’s ____ Campaign (5) 17 English courts of law from around the 12th century until the reforms of 1971 (7) 19 These vessels were used,…

Prema Arasu “Monsters, when studied as historical artefacts, tell us about the cultures from which they come: their fears, their anxieties and their attitudes towards the natural world.” Prema charts humanity’s enduring obsession with five sea monsters, on page 46 Timothy Garton Ash “Authoritarian regimes fear protest because it allows people to speak and find their voice. The pivotal moment is breaking that barrier of fear.” Timothy discusses the history of political protest, on page 9 Lizzie Rogers “Reading Jane Austen’s novels sparked my fascination for the 18th and early 19th centuries, and how women found their place in this changing world.” Lizzie explores what the novelist’s works can tells us about life in Regency Britain, on page 20 Thomas Ruys Smith “While researching the cultural history of Santa Claus…

"These are the last humans who have stayed outside 'civilisation'" A NEW REPORT BY SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL, Uncontacted Peoples: At the Edge of Survival, is the latest accounting of the human story – and it is a historical document of unparalleled power. It reveals that at least 196 groups in the world are still uncontacted, most of them gravely threatened by logging, mining and drilling for oil. These are the last human beings who have stayed outside ‘civilisation’ since the violence of the West reached across the globe after 1492. The report cast my mind back 25 years to when we made a series of four films telling the story of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Cortés, Pizarro, Orellana, Cabeza de Vaca: these were men who experienced some of the…

Listen ad-free at historyextra.com/podcast or with ads wherever you get your podcasts 20TH CENTURY Nazism on trial The latest in our new Sunday Series strand, offering in-depth, multi-part explorations of key historical events and figures, sees writer and legal expert Philippe Sands chronicle the genesis, efficacy and legacy of the post-Second World War Nuremberg trials. CIVIL RIGHTS Making Malcolm X He was one of the 20th century’s most influential, and most controversial, activists. In this instalment of our Life of the Week series, Ashley D Farmer highlights the women who helped shape Malcolm X’s ideas and worldview. ANCIENT Gladiators, ready Our fascination with the ancient arena shows no signs of dimming, as the success of 2024 film Gladiator II suggests. Harry Sidebottom charts the real experiences of the men forced…

It’s 30 years since the signing of the Dayton Accords, which officially brought the Bosnian War to an end. Even in the context of the bloodstained breakup of the former Yugoslavia, this was a conflict notorious for its ethnically charged brutality. Among those who witnessed the violence at first hand was Vanessa Lloyd-Davies, a doctor who served with the British Army and who volunteered to go to a besieged Sarajevo in June 1992. During her time in the city, the United Nations sent an aid convoy to Goražde, a town surrounded by the Bosnian Serb Army. Vanessa was the convoy’s medic. But as her sister, the documentarian Fiona Lloyd-Davies, remembers in Archive on 4: Battle of the Drina (BBC Radio 4, Saturday 13 December), the armoured personnel carrier in which…

I had watched Richard III meet a bloody end at Bosworth, come face to face with a plague victim, stood in the shadow of a mighty trebuchet, and been put on trial for my life. And it was barely lunchtime. The past millennium of British history has been a rollercoaster of war and famine, politics and pestilence. As I discovered, few locations capture that kaleidoscopic past more vividly than Warwick Castle. Walk through the imposing entrance into the tangle of towers, lofty walls, lakes and gardens, and you’ll be confronted by reminders of this extraordinary story wherever you look. In fact, Warwick Castle has frequently been at the centre of momentous events since at least 1068, when William the Conqueror built a motte-and-bailey fortification on a bend of the River…

Adel Rootstein 1930-92 IN PROFILE Born in South Africa to Russian parents, Adel Rootstein became arguably the leading British mannequin designer from the late 1950s onwards. She revolutionised mannequin design and played a key behind-the-scenes role in the London fashion scene of the ‘swinging sixties’, founding the successful mannequin company Rootstein with her husband, industrial designer Richard Hopkins. She died in London at the age of 62. "She was a great talent-spotter – she spotted the potential in Twiggy’s elfin look – and could identify a trend before it hit the streets" When did you first hear about Adel Rootstein? When she turned up at the front door of my little design studio near Paddington Station in London in 1969, following my first fashion collection. She’d tracked me down, wanting…