modern-history

At least 3,000 Herero and Nama people died in a German concentration camp at Shark Island, Namibia. A new forensic exhibition in Berlin is using digital technology to unearth how colonisers scarred a landscape, and a community Visiting the Namibian port town of Lüderitz in late 2024, I came across a small museum run by descendants of German settlers. Alongside imperial German flags and memorabili…

One man more than any other is associated with Singapore’s remarkable 20th-century success. Who was Lee Kuan Yew, and how did he do it? On the north bank of the Singapore River is an eight-foot-tall statue of a man striking a stately pose, arms folded, gazing into the horizon. Stamford Raffles stands – according to the plaque attached to the plinth – on the ‘historic site’ where he first landed a…

George Washington stayed in many homes during the Revolution. One estate, the Dey mansion in New Jersey, still stands today. Take a look inside.

It took 139 years to understand what caused the mysterious “Angel’s Glow” at the Battle of Shiloh.

As the oldest antiquarian organisation in Scotland, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland has been deeply involved in documenting the nation’s past for almost 250 years. Deborah Roe is our guide to this rich history, and to ambitious plans for the Society’s future.

HBS has put an exhibit at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library on Muriel Siebert, the first woman to buy a seat at the New York Stock Exchange Ana Elena Azpúrua reviews the exhibit: Muriel Siebert lacked the usual contacts or credentials valued on Wall Street. She liked to say that she arrived in New York […]

Recent global conflicts, from Russia and Ukraine to Iran and Israel, have seen a resurgent awareness of the frailty of US munitions stock, which has been drawn down by both direct and indirect involvement in these events. While exact stockpile volumes are not disclosed, it is estimated that supplies of US warheads and the missiles that carry them have declined by nearly an order of magnitude sinc…

As the far right fulminates about who ‘belongs’ in Britain, let’s remember Fritz Lustig, who arrived here in 1939, just months before war broke out. Initially jailed as an ‘enemy alien’, he played a vital role in a top-secret military intelligence unit When the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, Fritz Lustig, my father, was a 13-year-old schoolboy growing up in Berlin. He was a buddi…

More than 100 shipwrecks from a forgotten wartime gamble lie half-submerged in a quiet Maryland bay—and almost no one knows why they're there.

by Alexander Larman Today, Eaton Square is London’s most sought-after address due to its beautiful garden squares and its location just minutes away from Buckingham Palace. In his new book, The Secrets of Eaton Square, Windsor biographer Alexander Larman reveals the scandalous social and political history of Eaton Square that begins in the eighteenth century […] The post Featured Excerpt: <i>The …

Andrew Scott plays World War II meteorologist James Stagg in a new film Pressure , which explores the crucial role weather forecasting played in D-Day

Currently home to the National Museum of Flight, RAF East Fortune near Edinburgh is one of the UK’s best-preserved Second World War airfields. Re-examination of finds from previous excavations, on the site, as well as new evidence from recent field observations, has shed light on its long military history, as Dr Matteo Randazzo and Olivia Jones report.

The Whydah Galley sailed into a storm off the coast of Cape Cod and was lost for over 250 years. Until Barry Clifford dove beneath the surface.

Mariusz Lukasiewicz of Leipzig University has this interesting paper on the history of Nairobi Stock Exchange from the period 1954 to 1970. This article investigates the genesis, organisation and operations of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) in the period 1954–1970. Using the NSE’s institutional and organisational evolution as an analytical lens into the early history [&#8230;]

_International Journal of History_ 8 (5):184-190. 2026The war between Imperial Japan and Russia, which erupted at the dawn of the 20th century, had a profound impact on modern society, and the crucial battle that ultimately led to Japan’s victory was the Siege of Port Arthur. Although numerous scholars argue that the Russian Army’s defeat in this siege was primarily due to commanders' mistakes, t…

2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the Francoist uprising and the beginning of the Spanish civil war. An estimated 120,000-150,000 people disappeared during Franco’s repression, their remains scattered across 2,567 mass graves. The far right’s entry into regional governments, as in Extremadura, is dismantling the historical memory laws that allow for reparations for victims of the disappearances.…

Russia’s recent assault killed two people, injured 90 more and significantly damaged many of the capital’s museums For four years, Vitalina Martynovska and her team had been working on a complete transformation of Kyiv’s National Chornobyl Museum. The new sleek displays were designed to tell a fresh story about the reactor explosion of 26 April 1986 – the most serious nuclear accident in history,…

The new movie, based on writer and actor David Haig's 2014 play, dramatizes the tensions between military leaders and meteorologists in the lead up to the Allied invasion of Normandy.

This thesis examines the intersection between radio broadcasting as the "new media" of the 1920s and American political culture of the period, using New York Governor and 1928 Democratic presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith as a case study. Smith entered 1925 as a political lone wolf and left the year as a triumphant victor set to take the presidency. Building on the work of Smithian scholars, …

Civil War memory has shaped historical consciousness throughout the American South, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways. An unusual example of this phenomenon can be found in Orlando, Florida. Unlike in other Southern cities, in Orlando, Civil War memory did not grow out of wartime experience. Instead, it developed decades later during the post-Reconstruction period as generations removed…