History

Back in Britain for the first time in nearly 1,000 years, it has much to say about faith, nationalism and the apparent magic of AI

From Tehran to Beijing, parts of the left have become disturbingly willing to excuse authoritarian power

Seven decades after Ellis faced the hangman, author Louisa Treger argues that the attitudes behind her execution have not disappeared

Felix Hartlaub’s scathing notes on ‘one fanatic and a heap of ingratiating rubber dwarves’ may have got him killed

Younger people now tend to pronounce it Low-es-toft, but Low-st’f is historically accurate

The strange journey of a word that dates back at least eight centuries

A three-paragraph memo from 45 years ago sums up everything that can go wrong when politicians forget what they’re here for

The Ghanaian-born collage artist uses newspaper pages and archival photos to connect stories from Britain, West Africa, and the Caribbean

Punishment Park, the brutal mock-doc by Brit Peter Watkins that anticipated our age of rage and recrimination

New DNA evidence cannot settle the centuries-old debate – in fact it adds another twist to one of history’s greatest mysteries

Sometimes, new words are created when speakers swap sounds around in old ones

The problem of the house where Hitler was born has finally been solved – but it cost a lot of money

Maupertuis developed a fundamental theory of nature, became a star, but then died forgotten and in shame. Where did it all go wrong?

The ‘laureate of ordinary people’ has informed the new PM’s concern for the ignored

Shakespeare, for instance coined several new compound forms, such as lacklustre, eyesore and bedroom

Britain has saved people from tyrannical regimes by welcoming them in – but it has also rejected vast numbers of people. And there is a cost to that

No one uses the old Chicago to Santa Monica route any more, but the diners, rest stops and neon signs that marked Route 66 carry an eternal message

Douglas Haig’s willingness to trade thousands of lives for a few miles of ground has proved sadly durable

The photographer documented a city’s outsiders with wit and tenderness

Tari Lang’s memoir discusses growing up under Indonesia's military dictatorship while much of society carried on as normal

Some words have two unconnected meanings – others have simply drifted apart

The architects of the Constitution drew it up to restrain men exactly like Donald Trump. He’s a scar on the July 4 celebrations

Revolution is the national myth of the US. But another country’s quieter history shows its importance may be overstated

With guns, grenades, flamethrowers and sabotage training, the Home Guard were no laughing matter

Exploring sporting polysemy – the cases where a single word has several different, even if often related, meanings

There’s a guide for how politicians can achieve economic and social progress. It’s right there in the history books

The pleasure dome and sacred river were opium fantasies – but it was a place where the world met to trade

A list of Hitler’s party members is now searchable – but files that might embarrass the postwar elite remain stubbornly out of reach

The traitor was driven by Marxist beliefs, a snobbish desire for dominance – but also a deadly naivety

Only 34 people alive are in the most exclusive club on the planet. One photographer set out to track them down

A new exhibition puts the wartime prime minister’s work on show for the first time in 50 years

The damage from online shopping was bad enough – but now a new threat has emerged