To mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of Henry Benedict Stuart, also known as Cardinal York, on 6 March, 1725, our guest authors Calum E Cunningham and Stefano Baccolo offer five surprising facts about this influential man, now largely unknown outside Italy. You’ll have heard of his elder brother, though: Charles Edward Stuart, better […]
Writing historical fiction to an anniversary: some tips
If you’re writing a novel to mark the anniversary of a historical event – perhaps the most unmovable deadline there is – you may find these tips from Carolyn O’Brien, who learned them the hard way, will help you succeed. When my debut novel The Song of Peterloo was published in August 2019 to coincide […]
Fifty years of fake news; the cover-up of the Katyn Massacre
Thursday, 10 April, 2020, marks the commemoration of a war crime 80 years ago in which the Soviet Union massacred thousands of Poles in locations including the Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, not far from Russia’s present western border. The atrocity was covered up for 50 years, and it took the fall of the USSR for […]
Ten things you may not know about the Declaration of Arbroath
“The Declaration of Arbroath was and has been unequalled in its eloquent plea for the liberty of man. From the darkness of mediaeval minds it shone a torch upon future struggles which its signatories could not have foreseen or understood. “Firstly it set the will and the wishes of the people above the King… Secondly, […]
The Battle of Killiecrankie
To mark the 330th anniversary of the Battle of Killiecrankie, historian and author Maggie Craig considers why this violent confrontation still evokes memories as well as enthusiastic public interest. The Battle of Killiecrankie was fought on 27 July 1689. This bloody clash of arms in a mountain pass a few miles north of Pitlochry in […]
1719: the forgotten Jacobite rising
The Jacobite Rising of 1719: historian and novelist Maggie Craig tells Historia magazine why this ‘forgotten rising’ and the Battle of Glen Shiel in June 1719 deserve to be remembered.
Review: D-Day: The Last Heroes
Best-selling author AL Berridge reviews D-Day: The Last Heroes, shown on BBC One on Saturday, 8 June, 2019
Killing a king: the execution of Charles I
This year sees the 370th anniversary of the execution of Charles I on 30 January, 1649, an event which was, by law, commemorated annually for almost 200 years. Charles’s biographer, Leanda de Lisle, writes about the day they killed a king. Charles I awoke before dawn in St James’s Palace on the day of his […]