Court-martialled in absentia on 2 August 1940, the Vichy regime confiscated de Gaulle’s property and condemned him to death.

On 25 July 1908 chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda gave name to an elusive new taste: umami.

Hinduism predates colonialism by thousands of years, but in Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu ...

British military engagement in northwest Europe did not pause after Waterloo and resume in 1914. The intervening century saw ...

‘What’s past is prologue’ Shakespeare wrote – but so little is known of his own. There are plenty of theories, each as implausible as the next.

An early modern ship’s surgeon had to treat not just broken bones but distress and trauma. I n September 1649 ship’s surgeon John Conny was deeply relieved and praised God that ‘all our men [are] in ...

I ronically, when we speak about inquisitions, people have come to expect the Spanish Inquisition. But inquisitions into the ...

José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas, edited by Deborah Shnookal and Mirta Muñiz, collects the works of Cuba's ‘Apostle of Independence’.

Ancient Egypt’s bureaucratic society depended on an army of scribes. To get ahead, you had to be able to write – but that didn’t necessarily mean mastering hieroglyphs.

In 1787 the Quakers of Portsmouth made their anti-slavery campaign official by forming The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, joining forces with prominent abolitionists such as ...

The Society of Jesus was founded in Rome in 1539 by Ignatius of Loyola and nine companions, all priests, who placed themselves under a vow of obedience to Pope Paul III. Ignatius was a former soldier, ...

A milestone in railway transportation, George Stephenson's first steam train was unveiled on July 25th, 1814.