The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Almost as feted a family as the Tudors, the name conjures images of decadent royal Russia, of grizzled Siberian sorcerers and beautiful princesses (or grand duchesses), bejewelled palaces and icy, splendid St Petersburg. Although their reign spanned some several...
My memoir is a remarkable true story about how my family and I escaped communist rule in Czechoslovakia - one set against today’s conversations around freedom, communism, socialism, and legal vs. illegal immigration. The book is called Escaping the Grip of Eastern...
The Three Magi (and the word itself!) are, in some traditions, believed to take their origin from which monotheistic religion, centred in Iran? Aeschylus’ Persians focuses on the disastrous naval defeat in 480 BC of which invading king? How exactly was Julius Caesar...
Books of 2025 from Aspects of HistoryZeb Baker-Smith Editor of Aspects of HistorySeven Rivers by Vanessa Taylor explores how humanity and waterways have shaped one another across millennia, offering vivid historical portraits of the Nile, Danube, Ganges, Thames,...
A Fairytale for Christmas - Review Irish - and English - eyes were smiling at the Dominion Theatre on Sunday evening as the venue hosted Fairytale For Christmas, a celebratory show featuring Irish standards and festive hits. There may have been no discernible plot to...
A Very Tudor Christmas Have you ever wondered how the early Tudors marked Christmas? Well, I hope you have because that is exactly what this article will explore! Now, Christmas traditions in the UK (and indeed, the rest of the world) may appear set in stone – for...
Whig vs Tory During the pulsating and action-packed months of 1712, 1713 and 1714 many people, including a hefty chunk of MPs, were convinced that the country teetered on the edge either of the imposition of an absolutist Roman Catholic King and the extirpation of the...
With Americans celebrating Thanksgiving at the end of the month, November seems a good time to consider the Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower from Europe in 1620. Whilst researching my Alexander Baxby mystery Paying in Blood, I learnt more about their roots in...
The Other Conquest: England’s Forgotten King Though obviously not as well-known as the events of 1066, many people will have heard of King Knut (also rendered as Cnut or Canute), who became King of England in 1016, if only to the extent of knowing him to be the fellow...
Elizabeth Linley at the age of seventeen is England’s most celebrated singer. Her beauty and voice can captivate the King, or send an audience into a state of wild infectious hysteria, but suddenly and mysteriously she disappears during the night of March the 18th...
