Table of contents for March 2023 in History Revealed

The term ‘Roaring Twenties’ is one that more often than not conjures up images of Charleston dances and new fashions; a decade of fun and frivolity that followed the horrors of World War I. But is this the full story? In this month's Essential Guide, we've enlisted the help of Professor Sarah Churchwell, who helps us dig deeper into life in the 1920s on both sides of the Atlantic - from the music and creativity of the Harlem Renaissance and new freedoms for women, to racial tensions, economic uncertainty and the impact of prohibition. Turn to page 27 to get started. Elsewhere, we explore the remarkable career of Frida Kahlo, the celebrated Mexican painter who channelled her pain and passion into creating incredible works of art (page 52). We also…

THIS MONTH… 1817 ANNIVERSARIES THAT HAVE MADE HISTORY On 10 March 1817, thousands of textile workers converged on St Peter's Field, near Manchester. Organised by local firebrands Samuel Drummond and John Bagguley, the rally was the start of a march south to London to present the Prince Regent (the future King George IV) with a petition for better pay and working conditions. Those in attendance - many of them weavers had been encouraged to bring blankets in anticipation of sleeping along the roadside. But as they prepared to embark on their long journey, magistrates ordered the King's Dragoon Guards to disperse what they perceived as the start of an insurrection - and chaos ensued. GROWING TENSIONS The discontent had already been brewing for some time. By the turn of the…

IN A NUTSHELL YOUR BRIEF EXPLAINER TO HISTORY'S HOT TOPICS WHAT WERE THE SERVILE WARS AND WHAT CAUSED THEM? Between 135 and 71 BC, the Roman Republic was shaken by three separate large-scale slave uprisings known as the Servile Wars. The first two of these occurred on the island of Sicily. The third war, which was much larger in scale, and is probably the best-known, was led by the insurgent gladiator Spartacus. By the last two centuries BC, Rome had amassed an empire that encompassed the full span of the Mediterranean. Several dazzling military conquests had enabled the small city-state to wield dominance over a vast array of cultures and civilisations. Control of trade routes and exotic commodities brought untold wealth and prestige, including a plentiful supply of slaves from…

YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE ROARING TWENTIES These are interesting times to be a historian of 1920s Britain. As we move through a decade of centenaries, the instinct to look back, rather than forward, has been striking. Last year's launch of the 1921 Census online prompted a flurry of exhibitions and newspaper stories to mark the occasion, while in early 2020, headline writers were heralding the start of a new ‘Roaring Twenties’ and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was inviting us to “party like it's 1929”. As of 2023, the ‘jazzing flapper’ and peakcapped ‘Peaky Blinder’ remain the fancy dress costumes du jour. More than a century after the decade began, the 1920s are back in fashion. The 1920s might be everywhere, but so too are the myths that…

THE ECONOMY If you look at the barest of bones, it appears that the US enjoyed enormous economic progress during the 1920s, with the national wealth more than doubling during the decade. Thanks to the Fordney-Mc Cumber Tariff Act of 1922, hefty taxes were applied to foreign imports, encouraging consumers to “buy American”, which resulted in buoyant times for domestic companies - and for businesses offering personal credit. Mass production accelerated - most notably in the automotive industry, but also in the manufacture of electrical items and white goods - meaning there was an abundance of factory jobs, which in turn prompted mass migration to cities. Growing car ownership also fuelled the oil industry to greater riches, along with associated industries such as gas stations, motels and diners. However, this…

SHORT ANSWER inspired by Adam and Eve, the fig leaf became a symbol of lust and a tool of censorship LONG ANSWER According to the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve became ashamed of their nudity after eating the Forbidden Fruit, causing them to cover themselves with loincloths made of sewn-together fig leaves. In the 16th century, the Catholic Church adopted the same look; not for its priests’ vestments, but for a campaign against nudity in art - a response to the revival of the Renaissance, which encouraged artists to bare all in their works. Formalised by the Council of Trent in 1563, the ‘Fig Leaf Campaign’ led to works having their genitals covered or painted over, with even Michelangelo's David made to wear a bronze attachment over his groin…

1868 BET ON IT The traditional Chinese guessing game of fan-tan is first believed to have emerged more than 2,000 years ago, with generations of players gambling their cash on outcomes determined purely by chance. The most devoted players (like the gentlemen shown here) were found in the city of Guangzhou and the wider Pearl River Delta region, with migrants taking the game with them when they built new lives overseas. One US city in which the game became popular was San Francisco, with its Chinatown district boasting dozens of fan-tan houses by the second half of the 19th century. However, growing anti-Chinese prejudice in California - combined with stereotypical associations of fan-tan with degeneracy and vice - would lead the state to ban the game in 1885. 1990 LEVY…

25 March 421 AD VENICE IS FOUNDED The Church of San Giacomo is consecrated at the stroke of noon on the Feast of the Annuciation. The building towers over the Rialto islet, located within a marshy lagoon alongside Italy's northeastern Adriatic coastline. Although tribes have already been living in the region for centuries, later generations of Venetians will come to credit the building's foundation as the start of their city's rise to global prominence. 11 March 1708 ROYAL DISSENT Acting on the advice of her ministers, Queen Anne refuses to approve a bill regarding the creation of a new Scottish militia. But she has good reason to do so: on the same day, a Franco-Jacobite invasion force seeking to put her half-brother James on the throne is spotted sailing to…

SPOTLIGHT ON… THE LIVES OF HISTORY'S MOST FAMOUS FIGURES During the second half of the 16th century, two women stood atop English society. Both were fabulously wealthy landowners, both revered and admired, both independently shaped their own destinies in a man's world, both were redheads, and both were named Elizabeth. Yet while one - the queen, Elizabeth I - famously went her reign without a husband, Elizabeth ‘Bess’ of Hardwick contrived advantageous marriages four times to amass her fortune, elevate her status, and feed her ambition to build something for herself. The first of Bess's marriages came when still a teenager, around 1543. She had been born in the 1520s into the gentry of Derbyshire, but with much of the family estate seized by the Crown following her father's death,…

1920 17 JANUARY The Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution comes into effect (above), banning alcohol across the nation in a policy known as prohibition. 18 AUGUST US women (above right) win the right to vote after the Nineteenth Amendment to the constitution is ratified. 11 NOVEMBER King George V unveils the Cenotaph on Whitehall in tribute to the lives lost during World War I. Meanwhile, an unidentified British soldier from that conflict is interred in the nave of Westminster Abbey. 1922 5 FEBRUARY Reader's Digest is published for the first time by married couple DeWitt and Lila Bell Wallace in New York City. 30 MAY The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC (right) is dedicated. 18 OCTOBER The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) is founded in London. 26 NOVEMBER British Egyptologist…

Hollywood didn't invent the movies. But during the early decades of the 20th century, American filmmakers relocated from various parts of the country - New York City, Chicago, New Jersey - to California, where the industry operated in a more centralised way. The 1920s in particular would be a decade of revolution, one that made a quiet Los Angeles suburb the global capital of the movie world. It's not lost that status o er the 100 years since. Although a couple of notable studios - Fox and Paramount - had been in operation since before World War I, the 1920s saw the formation of many more companies, including Warner Bros, MGM, Columbia and RKO. Each would have its own rosters of actors signed exclusively to the studio's productions and the…

With the rise of a consumer-oriented economy, mass entertainment and seismic cultural shifts, the 1920s is often hailed as a time of significant and lasting social change in the west. Did these changes permeate through the whole of society, however? Was this an era of social liberation for women as much as it was for men? According to Professor Sarah Churchwell, the answer is a definite yes. “Women in the 1920S had a very different experience to what their mothers had,” she says. “It's not an exaggeration or a myth to say that their lives changed in this decade.” This can immediately be seen with some major victories for political emancipation right as the 1920s were beginning to roar: for the first time, many women were given the right to…

THE INCA EMPIRE Explore the dramatic highs and lows of the Inca civilisation - from life in the mountaintop city of Machu Picchu to the Spanish Conquest of 1572 PLUS… IN PICTURES: PHOTO HOAXES FROM HISTORY THE MYSTERIOUS LIFE OF ‘PRINCESS CARABOO’ SPOTLIGHT ON AVIATOR BESSIE COLEMAN INSIDE THE DRAMATIC SINKING OF USS INDIANAPOLIS WHAT IF… HENRY V HAD LIVED LONGER? AND MUCH MORE… CROSSWORD WINNERS The three lucky winners of the prize crossword in issue 115 are as follows: S Brown, Renfrewshire A Hudson, Cumbria J Sclanders, Lincolnshire Congratulations! You've each won a copy of The BBC Puzzle Book, by Ian Smith and Gareth Moore. We will post your prizes out as soon as possible.…

AMATEUR ARCHAEOLOGIST UNLOCKS PREHISTORIC CALENDAR London furniture conservator Ben Bacon has decoded a primitive system of timekeeping used by hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe during the last ice age, some 20,000 years ago. Academies at Durham University and University College London encouraged, and collaborated with, the amateur archaeologist to investigate his theory that cave paintings were not simply decorative, but in fact served a purpose. After researching multiple scenes and animals’ reproductive cycles, Bacon deduced that our prehistoric ancestors created images to chart their prey's mating seasons using the Moon's phases. Birth cycles were tracked using dots and markings that represented lunar months. The team's focus has now shifted to deciphering the eaves’ other mysterious symbols. ROMAN CONCRETE'S ‘SELF-HEALING’ PROPERTIES PROVE LASTING Concrete used by the Romans in buildings like…

THE HISTORY DETECTIVE DR NELL DARBY INVESTIGATES COLD CASES FROM THE ARCHIVES It really was a Victorian horror story: two 11-year-old boys go into their local print shop to buy some writing paper and envelopes, only to find the shop owners absent. After waiting some time, and noticing blood on the shop counter, they go to fetch a neighbour, who finds two bodies behind the counter. The owners - an elderly widow and her 38-year-old daughter - have been beaten to death with a plasterer's hammer; nobody is ever convicted of their murders. This double murder took place on 10 July 1872. The shop was run by the twice-widowed Sarah Squire, who, after the death of her printseller husband, took over his business, aided by her daughters Jemima and Christiana.…

SURPRISING FACTS? 1 THE CHARING CROSS WAS BUILT AS A MEMORIAL TO KING EDWARD I'S WIFE Also known as Eleanor's Cross, the original Charing Cross was erected by Edward I following the death of his wife of 36 years, Eleanor of Castile, in 1290. Edward had a memorial cross erected at every resting place of her funeral procession, the last being in the village of Charing - a stopover between the City of London and Westminster. The current cross, built in the forecourt of Charing Cross station, is a Victorian replacement of the original, 180 yards away from its former location, now marked by a statue of Charles I on horseback looking down Whitehall. 2 CHELSEA BUNS WERE A GEORGIAN TREAT In the early 1700s, Chelsea Bun House was opened…

Q: What do we actually mean by the ‘Roaring Twenties'? A: The term was originally coined in the 19th century, when it was used to describe young people aged in their own ‘roaring twenties’ - particularly men who were sowing their wild oats before settling down. As for the decade, the 1920s, the explosion of youth culture and emergence of ideas about adolescence at the time meant that ‘Roaring Twenties’ came to be an appropriate moniker for the period itself. That said, it wasn't in widespread popular use until around 1924, when people started to feel that the decade had a personality and needed to be described in such a way. Q: Did the 1920s ‘roar’ for everybody in the US? A: In terms of thinking about the 1920s as…

Music, literature, art, theatre, dance, fashion… Between the turn of the 1920s and the mid-1930s, the Harlem Renaissance had it all. It was an outpouring of African-American artistic endeavour, a golden age where black culture would make an indelible impression both nationally and internationally - and all from a certain neighbourhood in upper Manhattan. In 1925, the influential writer Alain Locke compiled an anthology of AfricanAmerican writings entitled The New Negro. The book was simultaneously a statement of intent and a reflection of Harlem's cultural output. In one of his contributions to its pages, Locke emphasised how this renaissance, this revival, was grounded in the concept of self-expression. It was both “a spiritual emancipation” and “a spiritual Coming of Age”, offering African-American artists “the realisation of the unwisdom of allowing…

Devised back in 1905 by Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, the Schlieffen Plan was a military strategy deployed by Germany in 1914 with the aim of winning the war in Europe in swift fashion. Rather than engage with France on its border, German troops would take a circuitous route through Belgium and the Low Countries in order to outflank and envelop the French army, forcing a quick surrender. With the French threat removed, Germany would then relocate its forces to nullify Russia in the east. Based on a misguided prediction that Britain wouldn't step in to defend Belgium, the plan failed, leading to a protracted stalemate on the battlefields of western Europe and a four-year world war that is estimated to have claimed up to 15 million lives. Nick Lloyd,…