History Revealed

On the face of it, Jane Austen’s novels might appear to focus solely on romance, love and the importance of making a good marriage in Georgian England. Yet read between the lines and you’ll find evidence of the changing times in which Austen lived an

In autumn 1888, George Lusk, chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in London’s East End, receives a strange parcel in the evening post. The accompanying letter, scrawled in ungrammatical English and purporting to be sent “From hell”, claims

These peckish Cuban combatants were clearly making the most of a break in fighting by roasting a pig. They certainly needed their strength: the War of Independence, launched in 1895 by revolutionaries aiming to bring to an end nearly four centuries o

The types of material used in clothing reflected the hierarchy of Tudor society. Linen and wool were worn by all people, with the best types of wool and silk reserved for the wealthiest. In the 16th century, an ordinary woman would wear a kirtle over

Dr Lizzie Rogers answers questions about Jane Austen’s England on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast: historyextra.com/jane-austen-qa HISTORICAL CONSULTANT FOR THIS MONTH’S ESSENTIAL GUIDE ■

In late 1688, King James II of England and Ireland, James VII of Scotland, saw his near-four-year reign drift to an end, after which he disappeared into exile. Replacing him on the throne were his son-in-law William III of Orange, the leader of the D

Jane Austen is born in Steventon, Hampshire. Just over a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, delegates colonies Philadelphia declare their independence and form the United States of America. The double-acting steam engine is pa

Q: What do we know about Jane Austen’s life? A: Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775, the seventh of eight children born to Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. The family lived in Hampshire, where George was a cleric, and Austen sp

On 16 December 1816, her 41st birthday, Jane Austen wrote a letter to her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh. Edward, as he was known, had recently gone to study at Oxford. Perhaps gently poking fun at Edward, a budding novelist, she wrote of his “str

There are two good reasons to expect the novels of Jane Austen to be factually accurate. First, Austen wrote only about what she knew and what was probable, for fear of giving “false representations”. She drew directly from her own experience and obs

In October 1562, English merchant John Hawkins set sail from Plymouth for the West African coast. Having heard of the great profits to be made from capturing people there and selling them in the Caribbean, he filled his ships with enslaved Africans –

While the novels of Jane Austen might suggest an endless schedule of middleand upper-class gaiety, disgruntlement was rumbling beneath the surface across the country – and, during this tail end of the Georgian era, it often erupted in violent, someti

Born eight months after the outbreak of the American Revolution, Jane Austen entered a world on the brink of seismic change. Although the conflict that ended with the independence of 13 North American colonies from British rule did not affect her dir

It is easy to dismiss Jane Austen’s era as a quiet period in England’s history, when the months passed in a succession of visits to country houses, grand balls and taking tea. Yet the years through which the author lived, from 1775 to 1817, represent

From crying plastic ‘babies’ to Barbie and Ken, dolls are as popular today as they have ever been – and the role of the artificial childhood playmate is certainly not a new one. More than 500 objects excavated at sites across the Roman empire have be

SHORT ANSWER This is less a case of ‘it belongs in a museum’, more ‘leave it to the movies’ LONG ANSWER In arguably one of the great movie opening sequences of all time, at the start of Steven Spielberg’s 1981 romp Raiders of the Lost Ark, the fedora

From the 17th century, some four millennia after the great stone monument was erected on Salisbury Plain, it was increasingly visited by antiquarians such as John Aubrey – who studied the site in 1666 – and tourists. This soldier was painted amid the

Answered by Joyce Tyldesley, professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester When travellers such as Herodotus visited Egypt in the classical age, they often described its religion as strange and primitive. In fact, the ancient Egyptians had

Answered by Dr Linda Yueh, fellow in economics at the University of Oxford and adjunct professor of economics at the London Business School The advent of the new millennium was a period of excitement about the internet and e-commerce. The so-called ‘

Answered by Jacob Mikanowski, author of Goodbye Eastern Europe (Oneworld, 2023) Not long after the communist regimes of eastern Europe were established in the late 1940s, the authorities in the self-proclaimed ‘atheist states’ found themselves confro

Answered by Kai Bird, co-author of American Prometheus (Knopf, 2005) After the ‘Trinity’ test, the first successful detonation of an atomic weapon, in July 1945, J Robert Oppenheimer – the American physicist who had directed the research into its dev

ONE TO WATCH Rise of the Nazis: The Manhunt / BBC Two, September In late July 1944, the advancing Soviet Red Army reached the city of Lublin in eastern Poland. Here it found an industrial-scale killing facility that must have horrified even the most

SHORT ANSWER To paraphrase the old adage, history is written – and rewritten – by the victors LONG ANSWER Statues torn down, paintings defaced, writings expunged, properties seized, the very mention of a person’s name outlawed: to be subjected to dam

BOOK OF THE MONTH By Adrian Goldsworthy Apollo, £35, hardback, 640 pages Adrian Goldsworthy’s forays back into the distant past always make for compelling reading, and his latest is no exception. Charting the prolonged conflict between the ancient wo

In this comprehensive episode recorded last summer to mark the 75th anniversary of Partition, Anwesha Roy answers listeners’ questions about the end of British rule and the terrible violence and suffering that accompanied the independence of India an

Delve into the many myths surrounding the life of the Boy King and the discovery of his tomb in 1922 – from his short reign to his mysterious death PLUS… IN PICTURES: BACK TO SCHOOL WHAT IF… THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA HAD NEVER HAPPENED? LIFE HACKS FROM

From the 1930s, Hollywood was in thrall to gossip columnists with the power to make or break careers. Few were more influential – and troubling – than Hedda Hopper. Born Elda Furry in 1885, she enjoyed a prolific acting career until the late 1930s, w