The Rest Is History

By the end of July 1914, the world hovered on the edge of a cataclysmic world war; Austria was at war with Serbia, Russia with Germany, and an ultimatum had been handed to Belgium. The July crisis had resolved itself in the most calamitous way possible. But how did this state of affairs erupt from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo a month earlier? Even...

Archduke Franz Ferdinand has arrived in Sarajevo for a military inspection, alongside his wife, Sophie, on the 28th of June 1914. Unbeknownst to them, six assassins, including Gavrilo Princip, line the route of the motorcade, from Sarajevo train station to the town hall. Having completed the inspection, the Archduke faces a first assassination attempt on the way to the town hall, as a bomb, thrown...

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, as heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was one of the most important men in the world. But he was a lonely man, not helped by the fact that, in spite of custom and tradition, he had chosen for wife Sophie, an aristocrat who nonetheless was not noble enough to marry a Habsburg Archduke. Public humiliation, enforced by the Emperor himself, would plague them for the rest of...

Gavrilo Princip, having been sent to school in Sarajevo, has become mixed up with the wrong crowd, and is now entangled in a secret Serbian nationalist organisation, the Black Hand. Hoping to be more involved in the struggle for a greater Yugoslavia, he’s left for Belgrade, and after a few years, sets in motion a plot, supported by his underground network. The Austro-Hungarian emperor is on his de...

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to one of the world’s greatest empires, in June 1914, set in motion a series of events that would culminate in the First World War, where more than 15 million people would lose their lives. Franz Ferdinand’s assassin, Gavrilo Princip, did not share the same illustrious lineage. A Bosnian serb of humble origins who dreamed of a greater Yugoslavia,...

To coincide with the re-release of Dynasty in audiobook, now with Tom Holland himself narrating, we have the book’s introduction for you to enjoy.   Dynasty, the sequel to Rubicon, is a dazzling portrait of Rome's first imperial dynasty, tracing the full astonishing story of its rule of the world. Ranging from the great capital rebuilt in marble by Augustus to the dank and barbarian-haunted forest...

From the turn of the 20th century, election campaigns - though still replete with politicians behaving badly - have evolved. They have become less mass-participation events or festivals, and receded, with the majority of the population growing increasingly indifferent. Though, following Nixon and Kennedy’s presidential campaigns in the 1960’s, there seeped across the Atlantic a sense that election...

"Good God I am shot! I shall die!" The colourful kaleidoscope of British elections from 1265 to their early 20th century incarnation, has seen some of the most critical, shocking, and downright farcical moments of western democracy. None more so than during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, when, following the dawn of party politics in the 1690’s, violence and “treating” - a means of enticing vot...

The image of Saint George astride his horse, sword and spear in hand, slaying a dragon, is one of the most iconic iconographical spectacles of all time. But what was the historical truth of this deeply mythologised figure? The conventional take on his story is well known: once, long ago, there lived a pagan king who refused to honour the one God. As punishment, a terrible dragon was sent to ravage...

"When dragons flew to war… everything burned. I do not wish to rule over a kingdom of ash and bone." Dragons - the most compelling of mythical beasts - are one of the most vivid creations of all human imagination, and their enduring resonance is captivatingly displayed by their role in George R.R. Martin’s House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones. But how did the legend of the dragon, prominent acr...

To coincide with the re-release of Rubicon in audiobook, now with Tom Holland himself narrating it, we have the book’s introduction for you to enjoy. Rubicon is a story of incomparable drama. This was the century of Julius Caesar, the gambler whose addiction to glory led him to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond; of Cicero, whose defence of freedom would make him a byword for eloquence; of Spart...

In 972AD a princess of the Byzantine Empire was sent by her uncle, the Roman emperor in Constantinople, to marry the son of Otto the Great - Emperor of the Latin West. A tantalising and formidable figure, Theophanu became a major player in one of the most tumultuous and mysterious periods of history. At the end of the 10th century, the world was still reeling  from the cataclysmic implosion of the...

"His clothes seemed to melt into each other with the perfection of their cut and the quiet harmony of their colour. Without a single point of emphasis, everything was distinguished" The suit has long served as the official attire of men in Britain, Europe and the Western World. Traditionally the uniform of the elites and an indicator of class, its purpose and design has evolved over time. Notably,...

In 1870 the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann - a man of remarkable energy, desperately fascinated with Helen of Troy - discovered in Turkey the burnt remains of what he claimed to be the legendary city of Troy, and with it, a horde of gold and treasure which he attributed to Helen. Following this breakthrough, he went in search of another, more obscure prize: Mycenae, one of the most power...

The story of Helen of Troy, her remarkable birth and her infamous love affair with Paris, the Trojan prince, resounds across the centuries. A figure of condemnation, pity and tragedy, her beauty set in motion the most legendary literary conflict of all time: the Trojan Wars. Yet, Helen’s story reaches far beyond Homer and the Iliad. From her godly parentage and the egg from which she hatched, to h...

"I will bury my heart, at Wounded Knee" With Native American culture in free fall in the years following their triumph at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the rise of the Ghost Dance - a form of spiritual expression that promised liberty from the oppression of 19th century American politics, modernisation and mass entertainment - brought a new hope to the Sioux. Even so, the once great war chieft...

Following the tragic death of Crazy Horse and the ruthless cessation of the Sioux way of life, the last of the great Native American leaders were gradually picked off or repressed by the U.S. Government. Few though had so pitiful a fate as the once mighty Lakota War Chieftain, Sitting Bull. Having fled to Canada in search of peace from the relentless harrowing of his people, Sitting Bull finally r...

Though the Battle of the Little Bighorn seemed for the triumphant Lakota and their allies - the largest gathering of Plains Indians ever assembled - a miraculous victory, it was for them the beginning of the end. A great council was held near the battlefield in which they made the fateful decision to split up. Meanwhile, in Washington, Custer’s death and the military defeat of the army was being p...

What happened between the moment that George A. Custer dispatched a trumpeter with his famous final plea for back-up, and the gruesome discovery of his forces at the Little Bighorn? Certainly, the morning of the 26th of June 1876 found the overwhelmed Major Reno and what remained of his men, along with Captain Benteen, gathered atop a hill, bloody, dehydrated, surrounding by putrefying corpses, an...

“You and I are going home today, and by a trail that is strange to us both…” The Battle of The Little Bighorn is one of the totemic moments of American frontier history. However, it is also mysterious, with the exact events of that blood-soaked day difficult to trace. On the 22nd of June, George Custer marched out with vague orders to drive the vast gathering of the Lakota and their allies, under...

The U.S. was cast into a spiralling panic following the economic depression of 1873, and waves of paramilitary violence swept through the south as the debates surrounding Reconstruction swirled on. Amidst this uncertainty, the government, under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant and his chief advisors, began drawing up a cold blooded plan to strike into the heart of Montana and settle the issue of...

In the wake of the barbaric Washita River massacre, George Custer found himself drifting; addicted to gambling, at odds with his wife, and failing in his efforts to take advantage of the American gold rush in New York. Finally, Custer was sent to Kentucky to suppress the terrible post war fighting there, but again found himself alienated from many of his companions by his controversial views on Re...

"What would you do if your home was attacked? You would stand up like a brave man and defend it. That is our story."  Following the bloody Fetterman Fight, which saw the Lakota warlord Crazy Horse and his warriors ambush and massacre American troops, the American public was left stunned, its government and civilian population hungry for revenge. In the wake of this a new treaty was signed, further...

Of all the great characters entangled in the story of George A. Custer and the American Indian Wars, few are as captivating as Crazy Horse. A mighty warrior of the Lakota Sioux, and a tremendous military tactician, he was a charismatic but enigmatic figure. The Sioux, of which the Lakota are a subculture, are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains. Their wa...

With the American Civil War coming to a close in April 1865, George Custer, cavalry commander in the Union army, and a man of dubious political leanings for a unionist officer, was sent to Texas. Reckless, daring and bloodthirsty, the conclusion of the war came as a disappointment to him. Then, having allied himself with the new, anti-Reconstruction American president, Andrew Johnson, Custer alien...