All About History

There are few literary figures as associated with this time of year as Charles Dickens, so it seemed only appropriate to close out the year looking at a piece of history through his eyes for our cover feature. Our look at mid-19th century London will

Until the Carnaby Street of the 1960s and, alongside images and experiences provided by war and royal occasions, the iconic images of London have frequently been Victorian. Charles Dickens and Jack the Ripper helped give the capital a reputation for

In Dickens’ time Covent Garden was one of the most vibrant and visited shopping areas of London and it remains a cultural hotspot of the city to this day. It was also a great mixing place for people of different social classes. Many of Dickens’ stori

In what is possibly the most graphic and disturbing scene in any Charles Dickens book, the author described the brutal murder of Nancy by Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist. It’s an event so dark than many adaptations of the book have tended to avoid portray

In his final week, Ibn Sina said: “I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length.” The Persian polymath died aged 57 but during those years he was a doctor, philosopher, mathematician, grammarian, astronomer, politician, poet and trave

At 7.55am on 7 December 1941, a first wave of 183 Japanese aircraft attacked the US Naval base Pearl Harbor at Oahu, Hawaii. A second wave of 170 Japanese planes followed an hour-and-a-half later, and in total 2,403 American service personnel were ki

Although the most recognised and remembered Japanese target on 7 December 1941 was the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese wreaked havoc at several other installations as well. Facilities and personnel of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army c

You stand in your armour, sword and shield at your side. Across from you is your opponent – similarly dressed and awaiting the moment when your duel will begin. Perhaps you are professional ‘champions’, thugs hired to defend your employers’ rights on

When it comes to the Tudors, it’s rare to see Margaret and Mary Tudor discussed in their own right. Born in 1489 and 1496 respectively, they were the surviving daughters of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. The sisters were born into the newly establi

Japan has a long history of feudal warfare. Such conflict reached its apogee during the Sengoku Jidai, ‘the Age of the Country at War’, that stretched from 1467 until 1615. The warlords of this fractured Japan, riven by civil wars, were known as daim

The Silk Road, a sprawling network of ancient land and maritime trade routes, connected the east to the west and bridged the gap between distant civilisations. Although this network famously gained its name from the lucrative trade of Chinese silk, o

The Franks were perennially short of troops in the Holy Land to hold the four crusader states established after the First Crusade. Because of this, they could ill afford a major defeat against their Muslim foes on the field of battle. Although the mu

Having founded the Ayyubid dynasty by uniting the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, Saladin had brought together much of the Muslim world to oppose the crusader armies. Jaffa would prove to be the final battle of the Third Crusade and Saladin’s final clas

By December 1914 World War I had been raging for five months. The widely held belief that the conflict would be over by Christmas had proven to be wrong and it was clear that the soldiers would be stuck in the trenches. Princess Mary, daughter of Kin

Director: Shaka King Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons Country: USA Released: 2021 A story of betrayal and racism in the highest offices of America VERDICT: Largely sticks to the already highly dramatic real events 01 William

Laghman is considered the national dish of the Uyghur and Dungan ethnic groups. It was developed thanks to the cultural exchange that occurred on the Silk Road and includes a variety of ingredients that would have been traded. We do not know when it