In HistoryExtra's Life of the Week feature, the Bletchley Park Trust's David Kenyon tells the story of Alan Turing, the computer scientist who shaped modern computing and contributed to breaking the Enigma cipher during the Second World War.
Thomas More, one of the brightest minds of Tudor England, is known as the author of Utopia; but his polemical language in Reformation disputes was startlingly sharp and crude for his contemporaries. HistoryExtra examines the historical context of More's counter-Reformation rhetoric.
The Cannery Workers' Shacks of Monterey, California, are tangible witnesses to the labour history of the coastal city's Cannery Row. The single-room wooden structures that housed the early twentieth-century immigrant workforce also formed the backdrop of John Steinbeck's novel.
The Vela Spila cave on the island of Korčula in Croatia carries traces of more than 20,000 years of human occupation. Excavation layers spanning from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age include some of the earliest terracotta figurines found in the Adriatic.
HistoryExtra examines how Rasputin's rise at the court of Tsar Nicholas II appeared to fulfil a nightmare that had haunted his mother for decades. The essay covers the deepening influence over the imperial family and the prophecy, scandal and political threats that fuelled opposition from within the Romanov dynasty.
In a detailed HistoryExtra essay, former senior diplomat Lord Peter Ricketts traces the half-century history of British political appointees to Washington. Spanning figures from Lord Halifax to Peter Mandelson, the piece weighs why some have succeeded as ambassadors while others have struggled.
According to HistoryExtra, the film 'Pressure' draws on a real historical episode in which meteorologists made difficult forecasting calls before the Normandy landings. Author Jonathan Wright explains the details of the decision through verified documents.
According to HistoryExtra, Marilyn Monroe's centenary brings a fresh historiographical lens onto the actor's talent, ambition and disciplined work. Her continuing impact on cinema history is now framed more by the strength of her work than by her status as a symbol.
According to Atlas Obscura, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum at the southern tip of Hatteras Island documents the maritime history of North Carolina's hazardous coast, from the pirate era to both world wars.
HistoryExtra has published a curated special list by journalist and music historian Jonathan Wright examining 27 songs that shaped the modern era. The songs, spanning from the rock'n'roll revolution to Civil Rights anthems, illustrate how music history is interwoven with broader contemporary events.
HistoryExtra examines the real role of Scottish meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg, one of the least-recognised figures behind the success of the 6 June 1944 Normandy landings. Leading the team that produced the single weather forecast delivered to Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, Stagg directly contributed to the decision that changed the course of the war.
Atlas Obscura describes the Galleria Bombi in Gorizia, Italy: a 19th-century pedestrian tunnel underneath the city's castle, whose history runs from market days to wartime air-raid shelter, and which today is used as a digital art gallery.
Just south of the Lincoln Memorial near the Potomac sits the John Ericsson Memorial, a tribute to the Swedish-born engineer whose work transformed naval history during the US Civil War. Atlas Obscura's listing notes Ericsson's role both in inventing the screw propellor and in designing the U.S.S. Monitor ironclad.
In a new HistoryExtra podcast, historian Dr Madeleine Pelling discusses the famous hoaxers of 18th-century Georgian England and how the public reacted to them. The Enlightenment era's newspaper culture and scientific curiosity provided the setting for these episodes to spread.
According to HistoryExtra, the Muslim community of al-Andalus, which lived on the Iberian Peninsula between 711 and 1492, left a legacy in agriculture, medicine, astronomy and architecture that remains influential today. Historians from Cambridge and Granada are debating the academic reassessment of this legacy.
According to Atlas Obscura, Cité Frugès, built in 1926 in the town of Pessac near Bordeaux, France, is one of the first applications of Le Corbusier's modernist architectural principles to worker housing. It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2016.
Roughly 200 kilometres south-west of Baku, in the mountain villages of Shirvan, Sundu is among Azerbaijan's lesser-known natural landscapes. According to Atlas Obscura, it is closely tied to the village's economic and cultural development.
Historian Jane Rogoyska tells how a single Paris hotel served as a refuge for anti-Nazi radicals before the war, a base for German intelligence officers during it, and a reception point for returning deportees afterward. The HistoryExtra podcast documents the hotel's multiple identities through contemporary sources.
Three cataracts on England's River Ure form the Aysgarth Falls in the Yorkshire Dales, where Yore Mill drew water power for nearly two centuries to weave wool. The mill is reputed to have produced the red flannel cloth supplied to Italian unification armies; the falls are now protected.
Born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, Monty Python's Terry Jones was sculpted in his famous 'Nude Organist' character by local artist Nick Elphick. The bronze statue, agreed by Jones' family after his 2020 death, was placed on the town's seafront promenade.
HistoryExtra reports that on 1 March 1999, Swiss balloonist Bertrand Piccard and British co-pilot Brian Jones completed a 19-day non-stop round-the-world flight aboard the Breitling Orbiter 3 hot-air balloon. The adventure stands as an important milestone in modern aviation history and a record of human achievement.
HistoryExtra reports that Mary Beard, in a new book marking 50 years of her academic career, examines how Roman scholarship has evolved and why we still read the ancient world in the 21st century. Her conversation with Charlotte Vosper offers an important record of the shifting questions in classical studies.
Atlas Obscura reports that the Canol Heritage Trail is a 355-kilometre path left behind by a pipeline project the US built during the Second World War to deliver aircraft fuel to the Pacific Front. Today it is known as one of the longest hiking trails in Canada's Northwest Territories.
Atlas Obscura reports that League Stadium in Huntingburg, Indiana — built in the 1890s and rebuilt in 1928 — is a small-town baseball park that long pre-dates Hollywood's arrival. The structure stands at the heart of the town and has become a symbol of American rural sport history.
Jane Austen's twenties were a critical period in which the foundations of her literary career were laid. Her social experiences, personal relationships and early novel drafts during this stage formed the groundwork for her later masterpieces.
Among the symbolic figures of the struggle against slavery, Frederick Douglass's writings, speeches and political activism were decisive in shaping the racial equality and civil rights agenda in 19th-century American history.
Detroit's Fisher Building, opened in 1928, carries a national historic-landmark designation as an architectural expression of the golden years of the American auto industry, with interiors and volumes designed by leading artists of the era.
Located in Northamptonshire, the Kelmarsh Tunnels stand as a notable example of 19th-century Victorian railway engineering and today form a quiet heritage site reclaimed for walking.
Historian Justin Marozzi explores the life, conquests and enduring legacy of Timur, one of the influential rulers of the 14th century, on HistoryExtra. Spreading from Central Asia across a vast geography, Timur is known both for his military campaigns and for the Samarkand-centred cultural and architectural legacy.
Although the destruction of Pompeii is one of antiquity's most famous disasters, the exact date the city was wiped out is still debated. Evidence ranging from pomegranates and warm clothing to Roman coins and charcoal graffiti points to a mystery still buried in the ash.