The madcap Paris Olympics: how chaos nearly derailed the 1900 Games
With the 2024 Summer Olympics taking place in Paris, this Long Read, written by David Goldblatt, describes how the 1900 Games, the first held in the French capital, almost defeated the Olympic ideal b...
11 Aug 202419min
The West Africa Squadron: Britain's war on slave ships
In the early 19th century, a Royal Navy squadron was sent to West Africa to hunt down ships carrying enslaved people to the Americas. The operation was hailed as an act of pure, unselfish philanthropy...
4 Aug 202419min
Club AD 130: a Roman holiday
From cruising down the Nile to carving names into historical monuments, ancient leisure habits don't seem too far from our own. This Long Read, written by Mary Beard, describes what happened when a pa...
28 Jul 202416min
Airborne assault: the spearhead of the D-Day invasion
Hours before the assault on Normandy’s beaches got under way on 6 June 1944, British airborne troops launched an attack on targets in the French countryside. And as Saul David writes in this Long Read...
21 Jul 202421min
The women behind Henry VIII's queens
Banished. Exiled. Died. Widowed. Berated. Survived. The ladies-in-waiting to Henry VIII’s wives were serious political operators with unparalleled access to the royal inner sanctum. In this Long Read ...
14 Jul 202422min
The Normandy campaign's forgotten naval heroes
Ferrying troops to the beaches wasn’t the only contribution sailors made during the Allied invasion of Normandy. In this special Long Read written by Nick Hewitt, we mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day...
7 Jul 202421min
Victorian scandals: sex, sadism & sugared death
Breaking news coverage of outrageous, taboo-busting or immoral behaviour has horrified - and captivated - societies for centuries. And the Victorians were no different. In this Long Read written by hi...
30 Jun 202425min
Roman slaves: the hidden lives of the empire's invisible labour force
Rome’s slaves were brutalised, mocked, exploited – or simply ignored. Yet, writes Guy de la Bédoyère in this Long Read, the Roman empire could hardly have functioned without the labours of this captiv...
23 Jun 202417min
