Category Archives: History

‘Monument to history’ battle between US and China over future of Mao’s secretary’s diary

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Beijing is believed to be behind court bid to secure account of life inside Communist HQ

In the early hours of 4 June 1989, Li Rui, a veteran of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), was standing on the balcony of his apartment on Chang’an Boulevard in central Beijing. He could see tanks rolling towards Tiananmen Square.

For weeks, up to a million protesters had been gathering peacefully in Beijing’s plaza, demanding political reform. But they failed. Instead, as Li observed from his unique vantage point, troops opened fire, killing an estimated several thousands of civilians. It was the worst massacre in recent Chinese history. “Soldiers firing randomly with their machine guns, sometimes shooting the ground and sometimes shooting toward the sky,” Li wrote in his diary. A “black weekend”.

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Battle to save pristine prehistoric rock art from vast new quarry in Norway

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Archaeologists fear more than 2,000 carved figures in Vingen could be destroyed when digging begins

One of the largest and most significant sites of rock art in northern Europe is under “catastrophic” threat.

The Vingen carvings, in Vestland county, Norway, are spectacular, and include images of human skeletons and abstract and geometric designs. Even the hammer stones, the tools used by the ancient artists to create their compositions, have survived.

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‘Parthenon of Macedonia’: site where Alexander the Great was proclaimed king reopens

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Thousands flock to see the Palace of Aigai, the largest surviving classical Greek building, after 16-year reconstruction completed

For 2,170 years it had lain in ruins: a palace that symbolised the golden age of antiquity, three times bigger than the Parthenon, unprecedented in architectural ambition, unparalleled in beauty.

It was here in 336BC that the king of ancient Macedonia, Philip II, was murdered; and here in the great peristyle – or columned courtyard – around which its banqueting halls coalesced that his 20-year-old son, Alexander the Great, would be proclaimed king, a moment that would change the course of history.

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Critics of Napoleon epic have fallen for emperor’s fibs, says film’s military expert

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The ex-para who advised Ridley Scott on the new movie’s battle scenes claims historians who attacked it have fallen for Bonaparte’s own hype

Critics of the “damaging” and “inaccurate” portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte in Ridley Scott’s new cinematic epic Napoleon are just victims of the French emperor’s enduring propaganda, according to the military adviser behind the film’s vast battle scenes.

Paul Biddiss claims that “Old Boney”, as he was known to the Duke of Wellington’s British troops, was promoted largely because he elaborated on his own successes. Bonaparte’s fibs impressed all France and intimidated his enemies – until, that is, he met his Waterloo in 1815.

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Half of Britons can’t name a Black British historical figure, survey finds

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Exclusive: majority of British people found to have ‘shockingly little’ knowledge about Black British history

More than half of Britons know so little about Black British history that they cannot name a single historical figure, a survey has revealed.

The researchers found that the UK knows “shockingly little” about Black British history. While 75% of British adults surveyed acknowledged that they did not know “very much” or “anything at all” about the subject, more than half (53%) could not recall any Black British historical figures and only 7% could name more than four.

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‘A Neolithic feat of engineering’: Orkney dig reveals ruins of huge tomb

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Clues unearthed more than 100 years ago inspired archeologists to locate the 5,000-year-old site

The ruins of a 5,000-year-old tomb in a construction that reflects the pinnacle of neolithic engineering in northern Britain has been unearthed in Orkney.

Fourteen articulated skeletons of men, women and children – two positioned as if they were embracing – have been found inside one of six cells or side rooms.

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Professor Hakim Adi shortlisted for prestigious Wolfson award

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The nomination for Adi, the first British person of African heritage to become a professor of history in the UK, is a vindication for the academic who was made redundant a week ago

Hakim Adi, the first British person of African heritage to become a professor of history in the UK, has been shortlisted for a prestigious history writing prize. This comes after Adi was made redundant by the University of Chichester when it cut a course he founded.

Adi has made the shortlist for the Wolfson history prize for his 2022 book, African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History. The winner of the prize, announced in November, will receive £50,000.

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Why English Heritage is encouraging adults to dress up

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Research shows our imaginations grow richer with age so the charity is giving grownups a chance to have fun

Parents are used to watching their children eagerly dress up as a knight or a gladiator before going bananas when they visit castles, forts and stately homes.

But English Heritage believes adults will also get more out of visiting their sites if they leave their inhibitions aside and don a Roman toga or medieval chainmail for the day.

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Rare stamp that offered fast track to heaven to go on display in UK

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Stamp for papers that enabled ‘fast-track’ through purgatory will be on show at a Hampshire priory

A seal matrix used to authenticate medieval indulgences and offer a fast track to heaven in exchange for cash is to go on display at a Hampshire priory after spending 500 years buried in a field.

The small carved mould, dating between 1470 and 1520, was found by a metal detectorist two miles from Mottisfont, an Augustine priory and site of pilgrimage near Romsey, Hampshire, that is now owned by the National Trust.

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Stolen Christopher Columbus letter found in Delaware returned to Italy

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Columbus wrote the letter to King Ferdinand of Spain in 1493 about his findings after the ‘discovery’ of the Americas

The US has returned a rare 15th-century original edition of a letter written by Christopher Columbus to Italy, the federal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency has announced.

The letter, valued at over $1.3m, was revealed to have been stolen some time between 1985 and 1988, likely from the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, the historic public library in Venice.

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Recovery of ancient DNA identifies 20,000-year-old pendant’s owner

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Elk tooth pendant unearthed in Siberia is first prehistoric artefact to be linked to specific person using genetic sleuthing

Scientists have used a new method for extracting ancient DNA to identify the owner of a 20,000-year-old pendant fashioned from an elk’s canine tooth.

The method can isolate DNA that was present in skin cells, sweat or other body fluids and was absorbed by certain types of porous material including bones, teeth and tusks when handled by someone thousands of years ago.

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Indian government accused of rewriting history after edits to schoolbooks

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References to Muslim rulers, deadly riots connected to PM and Gandhi’s dislike of Hindu nationalism removed

The Indian government has been accused of rewriting history to fit its Hindu nationalist agenda after school textbooks were edited to remove references to Mahatma Gandhi’s opposition to Hindu nationalism, as well as mention of a controversial religious riot in which the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was implicated.

Textbooks were also revised to remove chapters on the history of the Mughals, the Muslim rulers who controlled much of India between the 16th and 19th centuries.

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Lavish Flemish epic grips Belgians – but is it history or propaganda?

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The Story of Flanders, spanning 38,000 years of the region’s history, is funded by the nationalist government and is accused of stretching the truth

It is blockbuster TV, with Romans and Vikings, knights and Neanderthals, trains and the trenches of the first world war – and a hefty dose of political controversy.

The Story of Flanders, a 10-part history series airing in Belgium’s northern region until March, has been a cultural landmark. But the apparently lavish funding from the region’s government, run by the separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, which seeks to make Flanders independent from Belgium, has led to accusations of propaganda.

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Anne Boleyn’s reputation as ‘temptress’ to be recast in new exhibition

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Henry VIII’s second wife was a deeply religious woman who resisted his advances for years, according to fresh research

Anne Boleyn was found guilty of adultery, incest and conspiracy – all, almost certainly, false charges trumped up by Henry VIII – and then executed. For centuries, her reputation was that of a scheming seducer.

Now Anne is being recast as a deeply religious woman who, far from plotting to become Henry’s second wife, bade her time for six years as a lady-in-waiting to the king’s consort, Catherine of Aragon. She deliberately never consummated her relationship with Henry until their “unofficial” marriage in November 1532 – just two months before their formal wedding.

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Is Iceland’s language a Norse code – or legacy of Celtic settlers?

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Gaelic origins of Icelandic words and landmarks challenge orthodox view of Viking heritage, says author

According to folklore, a Gaelic-speaking warrior queen called Aud was among Iceland’s earliest settlers. Her story is central to an emerging theory that Scottish and Irish Celts played a far bigger role in Iceland’s history than realised.

A book by Thorvaldur Fridriksson, an Icelandic archaeologist and journalist, argues that Gaelic-speaking Celtic settlers from Ireland and western Scotland had a profound impact on the Icelandic language, landscape and early literature.

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Forgotten photos show how Kenyan archaeologists unearthed secrets of their own country

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Exhibitions in UK and Africa rewrite history by celebrating discoveries of overlooked black excavators in colonial era

The photographs are rare, the subject choice unusual, but what the photographer captured was a common sight in the early 20th century: a team of colonised people, hard at work under a hot sun, excavating an ancient monument.

Today, without these photos, taken in Kenya in the 1940s and 50s, there would be scarcely any evidence that African Kenyans were present at archaeological digs. Their contributions and priceless finds were credited to their European bosses – and their important role in unearthing the history of their own continent has been all but forgotten.

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Oldest known written sentence discovered – on a head-lice comb

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Timeless fret over hygiene picked out on engraved Bronze age comb from ancient kingdom of Judah

It’s a simple sentence that captures the hopes and fears of modern-day parents as much as the bronze age Canaanite who owned the doubled-edged ivory comb on which the words appear.

Believed to be the oldest known sentence written in the earliest alphabet, the inscription on the luxury item reads: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.”

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After 350 years, sea gives up lost jewels of Spanish shipwreck

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Marine archaeologists stunned by priceless cache long hidden beneath the Bahamas’ shark-infested waters

It was a Spanish galleon laden with treasures so sumptuous that its sinking in the Bahamas in 1656 sparked repeated salvage attempts over the next 350 years. So when another expedition was launched recently, few thought that there could be anything left – but exquisite, jewel-encrusted pendants and gold chains are among spectacular finds that have now been recovered, having lain untouched on the seabed for hundreds of years.

The Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas (Our Lady of Wonders) went down on the western side of the Little Bahama Bank, over 70km offshore, but the newly discovered treasures were found across a vast debris trail spanning more than 13km.

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Low winds stopped what might have been new ‘great fire of London’, says expert

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More than 40 houses were destroyed by fires on Britain’s hottest day. Now there are calls for an urgent rethink on building safety laws

Fires that burned in several parts of the UK last week spread in the same way as those that led to the great fire of London and would have been far worse with stronger winds, a fire expert has said.

Fires in Wennington, Uxbridge and Erith destroyed 41 properties last Tuesday, when temperatures went above 40C to make it the hottest day on record in the UK, and fire services had their busiest day since the second world war.

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‘Russia stole our history’: Ukraine’s bitter struggle to keep memory alive

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Beyond the frontlines, academics are fighting to counter the fake tales of their country’s past that are peddled by the Kremlin

At the entrance to Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, a bronze relief of the face of Mykhailo Hrushevsky stares out towards the red-painted portico. A historian by training, and a key figure in Ukraine’s national revival in the early 20th century, Hrushevsky served briefly as the head of Ukraine’s revolutionary rada – or parliament – in 1918.

Taras Pshenychnyi, deputy dean of the history department, pauses to examine the image of his distinguished forebear, and to reflect on the extraordinary times the university is seeing since the Russian invasion.

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