Articles

History Guild publishes articles that provide interesting insights into history. We cover all aspects of history, from around the world and across time.

How the Gunpowder Treason was discovered

How the Gunpowder Treason was discovered

Reading time: 9 minutes
On the night of 4 November 1605, a man calling himself John Johnson was found in the vaults beneath the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Under questioning, Johnson – whose real name was Guy Fawkes – admitted that he and his co-conspirators planned to use the gunpowder to blow up the House during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November. If successful, this plot – which became known as the Gunpowder Treason, or Gunpowder Plot – would have killed not only King James I (and VI) but members of his family, his chief ministers, and the Members of Parliament in attendance at the state opening. This was treason on an unprecedented scale – an attempt to destroy both the king and his government.

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Maths swayed the Battle of Jutland – and helped Britain keep control of the seas

Maths swayed the Battle of Jutland – and helped Britain keep control of the seas

Reading time: 5 minutes
If you’re about to fight a battle, would you rather have a larger fleet, or a smaller but more advanced one? One hundred years ago, on May 31 1916, the British Royal Navy was about to find out if its choice of a larger fleet was the correct one. At the Battle of Jutland – as the major naval battle of World War I is known in English – these choices were unusually influenced by mathematics.

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The End of History: Francis Fukuyama’s controversial idea explained

The End of History: Francis Fukuyama’s controversial idea explained

Reading time: 8 minutes
In 1989, a policy wonk in the US State Department wrote a paper for the right-leaning international relations magazine The National Interest entitled “The End of History?”. His name was Francis Fukuyama, and the paper stirred such interest – and caused such controversy – that he was soon contracted to expand his 18-page article into a book. He did so in 1992: The End of History and the Last Man. The rest, they say, is (the end of) history.

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The story of HMT Empire Windrush (1930–1954)

The story of HMT Empire Windrush (1930–1954)

Reading time: 5 minutes
This june will mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury Harbour, carrying on board some 800 passengers who gave their last country of residence as somewhere in the West Indies, and many of whom would migrate as workers and would settle in Britain and help steer its economic recovery after the Second World War. But this was only one journey in the vessel’s history and this article examines its colourful, chequered, and varied life since its maiden voyage was made in 1931 to its sinking in 1954.

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The original kamikaze: Kublai Khan’s invasion shipwreck found?

The original kamikaze: Kublai Khan’s invasion shipwreck found?

Reading time: 4 minutes
Archaeologists from the University of the Ryukyus in Japan have discovered part of a 13th century ship that apparently belonged to Mongolian warlord Kublai Khan. The ship is believed to be a remnant of a fleet that took part in one of Kublai Khan’s failed attempts to invade Japan, in 1274 or 1281.

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Vikings were never the pure-bred master race white supremacists like to portray

Vikings were never the pure-bred master race white supremacists like to portray

Reading time: 6 minutes
In contemporary culture, the word Viking is generally synonymous with Scandinavians from the ninth to the 11th centuries. We often hear terms such as “Viking blood”, “Viking DNA” and “Viking ancestors” – but the medieval term meant something quite different to modern usage. Instead it defined an activity: “Going a-Viking”. Akin to the modern word pirate, Vikings were defined by their mobility and this did not include the bulk of the Scandinavian population who stayed at home.

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A slave state – how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism

A slave state – how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism

Reading time: 46 minutes
The French historian Ernest Renan described forgetting as “an essential factor in the creation of a nation”, since patriots do not want to remember the “deeds of violence” at the origin of all political formations. In the Australian context, a strange contradiction contributes to the ongoing amnesia about slavery and its consequences. From the very beginning, enslavement shaped white settlement in Australia – and so, too, did abolitionism. That paradox, a peculiar entwinement of two ostensibly antagonistic impulses, makes for a complicated narrative, one that cannot be grasped simply as a local version of the better-known American story.

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Have humans always gone to war?

Have humans always gone to war?

Reading time: 5 minutes
The question of whether warfare is encoded in our genes, or appeared as a result of civilisation, has long fascinated anyone trying to get to grips with human society. Might a willingness to fight neighbouring groups have provided our ancestors with an evolutionary advantage? With conflicts raging across the globe, these questions have implications for understanding our past, and perhaps our future as well.

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Pickett’s Charge: What modern mathematics teaches us about Civil War battle

Pickett’s Charge: What modern mathematics teaches us about Civil War battle

Reading time: 5 minutes
The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the American Civil War, and Gen. George Pickett’s infantry charge on July 3, 1863, was the battle’s climax. Had the Confederate Army won, it could have continued its invasion of Union territory. Instead, the charge was repelled with heavy losses. This forced the Confederates to retreat south and end their summer campaign.

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Black troops were welcome in Britain, but Jim Crow wasn’t: the race riot of one night in June 1943

Black troops were welcome in Britain, but Jim Crow wasn’t: the race riot of one night in June 1943

Reading time: 5 minutes
More a mutiny than a battle, it led to the death of Private William Crossland in nearby Mounsey Road, and four other injuries to black American soldiers in a five-hour confrontation which spread from the thatched Olde Hob Inn at one end of the town to the Adams Hall army camp, where from early 1943 the US Eighth Army Quartermaster Truck Company, a black company apart from a few white officers, had been based. The event was officially downplayed, in order not to undermine morale on the home front, but the events of that night led to the conviction of 27 black American soldiers.

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Volcanoes, plague, famine and endless winter: Welcome to 536, what historians and scientists believe was the ‘worst year to be alive’

Volcanoes, plague, famine and endless winter: Welcome to 536, what historians and scientists believe was the ‘worst year to be alive’

Reading time: 5 minutes
536 is the current consensus candidate for worst year in human history. A volcanic eruption, or possibly more than one, somewhere in the northern hemisphere would seem to have been the trigger. Wherever it was, the eruption precipitated a decade-long “volcanic winter”, in which China suffered summer snows and average temperatures in Europe dropped by 2.5℃. Crops failed. People starved. Then they took up arms against each other.

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Remembering Long Tan: Australian army operations in South Vietnam 1966–1971

Remembering Long Tan: Australian army operations in South Vietnam 1966–1971

Reading time: 5 minutes
The anniversary of Long Tan reminds most Australians that despite winning that iconic high intensity battle, the Australians and New Zealanders lost the Vietnam War. In fact, the First Australian Task Force (1ATF) fought at least 16 big battles, and through superior firepower from artillery, armor and airpower, won them all, sometimes by a narrow margin.

But most of the struggle in Phuoc Tuy province and South Vietnam was a prolonged low intensity guerrilla war. The big battles only mattered if the US and her allies had lost them, as big battle success allowed the allies to stay in the War. Enemy defeats just forced the enemy to revert to low intensity guerrilla war, which the allies had to control if they were to win.

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Slavers in the family: what a castle in Accra reveals about Ghana’s history

Slavers in the family: what a castle in Accra reveals about Ghana’s history

Reading time: 6 minutes
The Castle is situated on the West African coast, formerly and notoriously known as the “White Man’s Grave”. The castle’s origins can be traced to a lodge built by Swedes in 1652. Nine years later, the Danish built a fort on the site and called it Fort Christiansborg (“Christian’s Fortress”), named after the King of Denmark, Christian IV.

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A brief history of lion taming

A brief history of lion taming

Reading time: 6 minutes
Britain’s last lion tamer, Thomas Chipperfield, was recently refused a licence to continue performing with his two lions and one tiger. The decision – which Chipperfield intends to appeal – marks the end of a long tradition of lion taming in Britain. It reflects a gradual shift in public attitudes towards circuses and a growing sense that making wild animals perform unnatural tricks is both dangerous and cruel.

While it has taken nearly 200 years for such views to result in a formal ban, these sentiments have been around for a long time. From its origin in the early 19th century, lion taming has elicited both awe and horror. It has also attracted a socially diverse range of tamers, whose performances have been both praised and condemned.

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Lead up to the Jonestown Massacre

Lead up to the Jonestown Massacre

Reading time: 7 minutes
Most people have heard Jonestown Massacre in 1978, when 918 members of the Peoples Temple committed suicide by drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid under instructions of the leader of their cult, Jim Jones. How did Jones get this kind of influence over his followers, though, and why would they even consider suicide?

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How the Coastwatchers Turned the Tide of the Pacific War

How the Coastwatchers Turned the Tide of the Pacific War

Australian Coastwatchers brought the tide of Japanese invasive successes to a shuddering halt when two coastwatchers spotted and reported an invasion fleet of 5,500 Japanese troops sailing south. The Coastwatchers’ observation was pivotal as it precipitated the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 and thwarted the Japanese invasion of Port Moresby.

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LUCKY DISCOVERIES OF LOST ANCIENT HISTORY

LUCKY DISCOVERIES OF LOST ANCIENT HISTORY

Reading time: 8 minutes
Our knowledge of the ancient world owes a lot to chance discoveries. Here, we share the stories of some of the most important and unlikely finds from ancient Western history.

They range from the keys to forgotten scripts from Ancient Egypt and the time of Troy, to lost poems, philosophies and even a legal text book. We owe their preservation not only to luck, but to the fastidious and obsessive geniuses who uncovered and deciphered them.

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The Cowra breakout: remembering and reflecting on Australia’s biggest prison escape

The Cowra breakout: remembering and reflecting on Australia’s biggest prison escape

Reading time: 8 minutes
Today (August 5) marks the 81st anniversary of Australia’s largest prison escape: the Cowra breakout, in New South Wales, during the second world war. In fact, it is one of the largest prison escapes in world history, but unless you are a keen war historian you may have never heard about it. A small farming community was forever changed in 1944, when the sound of a bugle cut through the crisp night air at the Cowra Prisoner of War camp.

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A white supremacist coup succeeded in 1898 North Carolina, led by lying politicians and racist newspapers that amplified their lies

A white supremacist coup succeeded in 1898 North Carolina, led by lying politicians and racist newspapers that amplified their lies

Reading time: 6 minutes

Those who study Reconstruction and its aftermath know the U.S. has deep experience with political and electoral violence. Reconstruction was the 12-year period following the Civil War when the South returned to the Union and newly freed Black Americans were incorporated into U.S. democracy.

The news media, it turns out, have often been key actors in U.S. electoral violence. This history is explored in a chapter one of us – Gustafson – wrote for a book the other – Forde – co-edited with Sid Bedingfield, “Journalism & Jim Crow: The Making of White Supremacy in the New South,” which comes out later this year.

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General History Quiz 181

1. Which country manufactured the largest battleships ever made?
Try the full 10 question quiz.

General History Quiz 180

1. When did Allied forces launch their invasion of Sicily during WW2?
Try the full 10 question quiz.

5,700 years of sea-level change in Micronesia hint at humans arriving much earlier than we thought

Reading time: 4 minutes
Sea levels in Micronesia rose much faster over the past 5,000 years than previously thought, according to our new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This sea-level rise is shown by the accumulation of mangrove sediments on the islands of Pohnpei and Kosrae. The finding may change how we think about when people migrated into Remote Oceania, and where they might have voyaged from.

The original kamikaze: Kublai Khan’s invasion shipwreck found?

Reading time: 4 minutes
Archaeologists from the University of the Ryukyus in Japan have discovered part of a 13th century ship that apparently belonged to Mongolian warlord Kublai Khan. The ship is believed to be a remnant of a fleet that took part in one of Kublai Khan’s failed attempts to invade Japan, in 1274 or 1281.

General History Quiz 179

1. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. How many people were killed in the storm?
Try the full 10 question quiz.

Have humans always gone to war?

Reading time: 5 minutes
The question of whether warfare is encoded in our genes, or appeared as a result of civilisation, has long fascinated anyone trying to get to grips with human society. Might a willingness to fight neighbouring groups have provided our ancestors with an evolutionary advantage? With conflicts raging across the globe, these questions have implications for understanding our past, and perhaps our future as well.

General History Quiz 178

1. Who painted ‘The Fighting Temeraire’, shown below?
Try the full 10 question quiz.

General History Quiz 177

1. Which two armies clashed at the battle of Bannockburn?
Try the full 10 question quiz.

Volcanoes, plague, famine and endless winter: Welcome to 536, what historians and scientists believe was the ‘worst year to be alive’

Reading time: 5 minutes
536 is the current consensus candidate for worst year in human history. A volcanic eruption, or possibly more than one, somewhere in the northern hemisphere would seem to have been the trigger. Wherever it was, the eruption precipitated a decade-long “volcanic winter”, in which China suffered summer snows and average temperatures in Europe dropped by 2.5℃. Crops failed. People starved. Then they took up arms against each other.

General History Quiz 176

1. How long did the Berlin Wall stand?
Try the full 10 question quiz.