David Dickson— High up on the venerable façade of Heuston railway station in Dublin one can just make out three coats of arms. They represent the cities of Cork, Limerick, and Dublin itself. That is probably the only place where the civic symbols of what were once Ireland’s three largest
Ambrogio A. Caiani— On the night of 5 July 1809 French forces kidnapped Barnabà Chiaramonti, Pope Pius VII, from his private apartments in the Quirinal Palace in Rome. He would spend the following five years as a prisoner of Napoleon. Ultimately, the Pope refused to renounce his central Italian kingdom,
Geoffrey Parker— The future Charles V first made his presence felt from the womb. In September 1499, Philip summoned ‘a midwife from the city of Lille’ to ‘see and visit’ Joanna; and four months later he sent a courier ‘at the utmost speed, day and night, without sparing men or
Janet M. Hartley— In the late thirteenth century, Muscovy was a small, landlocked principality and a vassal state of the Mongol Empire. By the late the sixteenth century, however, it had experienced an extraordinary expansion of territory under the control of Ivan IV, who styled himself no longer grand prince
Vernon Bogdanor— Is Britain part of Europe? Of course, geographically we certainly are part of Europe. But politically? The answer is by no means clear. Britain has long had an ambivalent relationship with the Continent. It is apparent even in the way that we speak. We speak of entering Europe
David Stafford— Shortly before noon on Wednesday 26 January 1921 an express train bound for Shrewsbury in England was speeding towards the small rural station of Abermule, close to the Severn river in Wales. It was on a single-track line. A safety system used by the Cambrian Railway Company involving
Richard Butterwick— The ancient Roman historian Sallust pronounced, “It is better to live in perilous liberty than in tranquil servitude.” But on May 3, 1791, a path beyond the Sallustian dilemma of perilous liberty or tranquil servitude was offered to old Poland, otherwise known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Their parliament,
Helen Fry— 11 March 1943. In a cell at Latimer House in Buckinghamshire, two German soldiers, a lower rank infantry officer captured in Tunisia the previous year, and a paratrooper captured in Algeria a few months before, are discussing the interrogations they have undergone. The previous day, British agents had
Michael Hattem– For a few decades, American history has played a prominent role in the most current iteration of culture wars in the United States. We saw this most recently in some of the ways that President Trump motivated his base in the 2020 presidential election. These included holding “the
George Prochnik— What’s life without glory, blazing love affairs, and apple tarts? That’s to say, what is life without song and true liberation for all? Heinrich Heine at thirteen, diminutive and dashing with wavy chestnut hair and a passion for play, charged into the crowd beneath the linden trees of