In June 1947 Kenneth Arnold was flying a small plane over Mount Rainier in Washington when nine bright objects began tracking him at high speed. People have always seen signs and wonders in the skies, ...

‘What historical topic have I changed my mind on? The British in India, who I once looked upon as a benign force.’ ...

On 9 October 1771 masterpieces of Dutch art destined for Catherine the Great sank with the Vrouw Maria off the coast of ...

In 1866 James Hole, a writer from Leeds, called for ‘a little wholesome despotism’ in tackling the problems of housing the urban working classes. He was not alone in favouring a no-nonsense, top-down ...

When his father, Rama II, died in 1824 the Siamese throne went to Mongkut’s older half-brother, who ruled as Rama III. Mongkut, aged 19, joined a monastery. Three months was customary. Mongkut stayed ...

The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett picks through the fragments of ...

Roger II, it has been said, conceived of his Sicilian kingdom as a ‘work of art’. If so, contemporary reviews were mixed at best. To Bernard of Clairvaux he was ‘the Sicilian usurper’; to the ...

The prospect of a second Donald Trump victory in November’s US election has widely been seen – at least by liberal commentators –as an apocalyptic threat to democracy. Indeed, the coming election is ...