Nestor Makhno: The Forgotten Revolutionary
He is barely remembered now even in radical circles and perhaps only mentioned in passing but Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, the poor peasant …
Sir Peter Lely: A Court Painter
He was born Pieter van der Faes on 14 September 1618 in Soest, Germany, but his parents were Dutch and he was raised in Haarlem where he …
Queen Henrietta Maria
Charles I married Princess Henrietta Maria of France by proxy on 1 May, 1625, just weeks after he ascended to the throne of England. He was …
Beau Brummell: Dandy
He was a fashion icon, the first of his kind, a man known for little more than the clothes he wore and the manner of his being – …
Highwaymen: ‘Stand and Deliver!’
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The …
Tolpuddle Martyrs
The fate of the Tolpuddle Martyrs has long formed a central plank of socialist propaganda, a cause celebre around which all factions of the …
Omaha Beach
Tuesday, 6th June, 1944 would be D.Day, start of Operation Overlord the Allied invasion of Nazi Occupied Europe. It had originally been …
Pilgrim Fathers
By the time of her death on 24 March 1603, the glory days of Queen Elizabeth’s reign were well and truly over. The defeat of the Armada …
The Innocence of Pontius Pilate?
The story is told how many years ago a young Russian Jew was paid a rouble a month by the local Mayor to stand on the outskirts of his town …
William Jennings Bryan: The Great Commoner
A thick-set robust man of boundless energy with a loud voice and a big personality, William Jennings Bryan was difficult to ignore. His …
Constance Markiewicz: The English Countess of Irish Freedom
Born on 4 February 1868, Constance Georgine Gore-Booth was destined to be a lady, and as an English aristocrat raised in Ireland, …
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert, a Hohenzollern, and future Emperor of Germany was born on 27 January 1859 in Berlin at a time when the …