Sommaire pour Issue 165 de All About History

As subscribers to our weekly newsletter know, (scan the link above if you want to join) there’s a steady stream of archaeological discoveries that seems to emerge from Egypt. There are teams working there constantly looking to unearth tombs and temples that tell us all sorts of amazing things about life in the ancient world. But for all the searching and hunting, Nefertiti’s final resting place has been eluding experts for well over 100 years. Since the discovery of the bust of Nefertiti, stepmother to the legendary Tutankhamun, there have been many false starts and promising attempts to find her remains, in the hopes that they will shed more light on her story, the glimpses of which already tell a fascinating tale. With each year, that key discovery feels a…

The British parliament has certainly had its fair share of vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells seated on the benches of power, from the seedy private lives of figures like David Lloyd George to loveable rabble-rousers such as Richard Sheridan. So does power corrupt? Or are ‘bad boys’ attracted to authority like moths to a flame? Here historian Debbie Kilroy, author of Members Behaving Badly: A History of Britain in 52 Parliamentary Rogues, tells us some of the most notorious tales from the House of Commons. How scandalous is Britain’s political history? It’s pretty bad! Britain has a long parliamentary history, so there are many examples from which to draw. If you think about some other legislatures, the history of having representatives of the people is much shorter: we have a far greater…

Miracles, by their supernatural nature, tend not to happen too often and they seldom appear to more than a few people at a time. Miracles and other paranormal events are those that defy our understanding of the natural order of the universe. Some attribute instances in which the laws of nature are suspended to the actions of gods, or angels, or demons, or other unspecified spirits. All we can know of them is what witnesses report to us. Because most miracles occur in isolation and to just a handful of people, much room is left for sceptics to doubt whether they even happened at all. It is easy to dismiss one person’s account of a strange event as unreliable, confused or false. But what are we to make of occasions…

Between 1400 and 1415 Wales was in revolt, with the proclaimed Prince Owain Glyndŵr leading the rebellion. He gathered armies of thousands and by 1404 much of Wales supported his uprising. However, the tide began to turn against him when King Henry IV ordered his son, the future King Henry V, to take troops and destroy the Welsh rebels. Even French reinforcements proved unable to help Glyndŵr and in 1415 he disappeared, never to be seen again. But just how close to victory was he? And what would his triumph have meant for the future of not only Wales as an independent nation, but the United Kingdom? Who was Owain Glyndŵr? By 1284, the English conquest of Wales was effectively complete, but in 1295 there was an attempted rebellion. Following…

London, 16th – 17th century In June 1912, workmen demolishing a site in London’s Cheapside area discovered something extraordinary. As they dug into the building’s cellars they came across what every child dreams of finding – treasure. Buried in the dirt were exquisite items of jewellery, precious gemstones and even carved pearls. But just how long had the treasure lain there? And why were such valuable items hidden in the ground in the first place? The treasure was taken to George Fabian Lawrence, a jeweller known by his nickname of ‘Stony Jack’. Lawrence had taken it upon himself to become acquainted with London’s labourers, eager to purchase any antiquities they may uncover – even if the object in question was worthless. When the hoard arrived at his doorstep, Lawrence contacted…

Delve into the hidden world of 19th century crime-fighting women with Professor Sara Lodge When we think about Victorian detectives, it would be hard not to conjure up an image in our minds of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic character, investigating mysteries wearing his deerstalker and accompanied by his sidekick Dr Watson. Or perhaps the figure of Inspector Abberline and his intense investigation into the notorious Jack the Ripper murders enters our heads. The image of Robert Peel’s ‘bobbies’ has also become synonymous with the Victorian police force, but are these conceptions accurate? Professor Sara Lodge doesn’t believe so. In her book The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective, she shines a light on the lives and achievements of the hidden women who worked as searchers and investigators.…

A new exhibition at Kensington Palace in London will mark the 150th birthday of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh by telling her story and the stories of the remarkable women in her sphere. A passionate suffragette and activist, Princess Sophia was the daughter of the last maharaja of the Sikh Empire and the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her life was a complex one, shaped by her Punjabi heritage, her life in Britain and her relationship with Victoria and British aristocracy. The Last Princesses of Punjab exhibition will explore Princess Sophia’s life and the lives of her two sisters, Catherine and Bamba; her German-Ethiopian mother, Bamba Müller; and her grandmother, Jind Kaur. Each of these women were powerful changemakers: Jind Kaur ruled the Sikh Empire as regent; Bamba Müller was born into…

1666 GREAT FIRE OF LONDON Starting at a bakery on Pudding Lane in the east of the City of London, a fire spreads for four days through London, destroying houses, churches and halls along the way. Buildings are torn down ahead of the flames in the hope of impeding the fire’s progress. 1863 LONDON UNDERGROUND On 10 January the first underground train service opens as the Metropolitan Railway runs between Bishop’s Road (now Paddington) and Farringdon Street. The Metropolitan District Railway follows between South Kensington and Westminster in 1868. 2005 7 JULY BOMBINGS Four coordinated suicide bombings take place across London, killing 52 people and injuring 770. The blasts take place on underground trains between 8:50 and 9:47am near Aldgate, Edgware Road and Russell Square stations, with a fourth device…

Around 1330 BCE, the master sculptor Thutmose started work on his latest design for Egypt’s royal family: a painted bust of the queen. Taking direction from his own drawings, he formed its core from limestone, but added an outer layer of plaster, which he could sculpt with ease. He then painted its surface. This bust would serve as a master model for Thutmose’s artisans to help guide their work when carving their own royal statues. It was one of many such creations that he made. As well as plaster portraits, he’d also carved and painted a bust of the king, Akhenaten, and stone sculptures of the royal princesses. It had been a busy time – the king had announced a new formal art style for his reign, and all royal…

THE STORY OF AN ALL-AMERICAN TRAITOR Mildred Gillars is a name synonymous with treason in the United States. During the Second World War the American became a broadcaster in Nazi Germany, tasked with devastating the morale of US troops. Yet despite her minimal impact on America’s fighting spirit, Gillars – dubbed Axis Sally by her listeners – today boasts a legacy comparable to defector Benedict Arnold, spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and double-agent Robert Hanssen. Exactly how and why the failed actress descended from the Broadway stage and onto the fascist airwaves of the Third Reich still largely remains unexplained. “Even now, mystery and ambiguity shroud her troubled life. Many, many questions surrounding her choices remain unanswered and, frankly, probably unanswerable,” says Professor Michael Flamm, a scholar of modern American…