The remarkable fall of absinthe: from 19th-century ‘Green Fairy’ to scourge of society.

Caught between the antagonistic states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is stuck in geopolitical limbo. Its location – and its ...

Prague, under the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, became the centre of the Renaissance world, where cultures mixed and learning ...

Chevaliere d’Eon or Chevalier d’Eon? An 18th-century legal dispute between two French spies unravelled into a public battle ...

A new book for the new year is an old British custom, but an old book can be even better.

So when Raúl Castro called for an end to the embargo based on economic and humanitarian grounds in late December, he was ...

For much of the 20th century, young working-class women in England found out about procreation the ‘hard way’ or the ‘dirty way’.

As convicts celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday on remote Norfolk Island, debates raged over the purpose of punishment and ...

Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch reminds us that when it comes to sexuality and gender, scripture is often contradictory.

The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 forced the Japanese government into unconditional surrender and the country, which was in a state of collapse, was occupied by ...

Silent Night, or Stille Nacht in its original German, is one of the best known songs in the world, but few know anything of its authors. Its lyrics were written in 1816 by a somewhat loose-living ...