HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-11-19T16:41:37.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Tales of the toilet: a historical A–Z
items: What happened at the battles of Lexington and Concord?
items: The 1943 battle of Kursk: was it the biggest tank battle in history?
items: The battle of Worcester: Cromwell’s last battle
items: The battle of Naseby: what happened?
items: The battle of Brunanburh: the forgotten fight that changed British history
items: The history of school uniforms
items: The battle of Blenheim: how did the Duke of Marlborough triumph on the Danube?
items: The battle of Pharsalus: how Julius Caesar defeated Pompey
items: Dien Bien Phu: the battle that split Vietnam

Tales of the toilet: a historical A–Z
type: item
date: 2025-11-19T16:03:17.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: When was the first toilet invented? What did people use before the modern flush? What are the origins of the term 'crapper'? To mark World Toilet Day, Julian Humphrys explores the history of Britain's loos
encoded: A... is for Ajax Although Elizabethan writer and courtier John Harrington wasn’t the first person to design a flushing toilet – Londoner Thomas Brightfield had done so in 1449 – he was the first to provide a written specification for one. In 1596, he penned his Metamorphosis of Ajax (a pun on ‘jakes’, a slang word for a privy) in which he described a remarkably modern-sounding device that he’d installed in his house. This incorporated a pan with a seat and a cistern filled with water. When a handle was turned, the water washed the contents of the pan into a cesspool. Although Harrington installed one for Queen Elizabeth I in Richmond Palace, cost, problems of water supply, and lack of sewers meant that the idea wouldn’t catch on for centuries. B... is for Bazalgette By the 1850s, London’s growing population was producing unmanageable amounts of sewage. Cesspools leaked and overflowed, contaminating water supplies, and matters weren’t helped by the outpourings of the increasingly popular water closet. London’s Commission of Sewers had ordered that cesspools and house drains should be connected to sewers, but these fed directly into an increasingly noisome River Thames. Following the ‘Great Stink’ of 1858, when the smell from the river was so bad that MPs even considered abandoning Westminster, the Metropolitan Board of Works was tasked with overhauling London’s sewerage system. Civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette (1819–91) was put in charge of operations. His 16-year project included embanking parts of the Thames, constructing 1,100 miles of street sewers, 82 miles of main interceptor sewers and building four monumental pumping stations, all designed to take the sewage eastwards to be discharged into the river away from heavily-populated areas. Watch | 10 minutes of toilets through time View Green Video on the source website C... is for Crapper In 1866, Yorkshire-born industrialist and plumber Thomas Crapper opened the world’s first bathroom showroom in Chelsea. For the…

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What happened at the battles of Lexington and Concord?
type: item
date: 2025-04-17T17:00:03.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Anniversary
description: When British troops went to seize arms stockpiled by American colonists at Concord, Massachusetts, they could have had little idea of their raid’s revolutionary ramifications. Julian Humphrys explains all…
encoded: Under cover of darkness, in the early hours of 19 April 1775, a force of British soldiers was on the move. General Thomas Gage, the British Commander in Boston, Massachusetts, had learned the American colonists were stockpiling weapons and ammunition at Concord, about 18 miles away. To nip any potential resistance in the bud, he ordered a surprise raid to seize the lot. What happened next at Lexington and Concord lit the spark of the American Revolution, and the events have been immortalised as "the shot heard round the world", a phrase coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1837 poem Concord Hymn. Find out below what happened during the battles, and the importance of the events of 19 April in the long conflict to come… What tensions led to the battles at Lexington and Concord? In 1775, Britain’s 13 American colonies ran along the east coast from Massachusetts in the north to Georgia in the south. Each was administered by a royal governor, his council and an elected colonial assembly. After defeating the French in North America in the early 1760s, in part during the Seven Years' War, Britain wanted to increase taxes in America and make the colonies pay for their own defence. Using the slogan ‘No taxation without representation’, the colonists argued that only their own assemblies, and not the British parliament, had a right to levy taxes. Tensions rose. December 1773 saw the colonists dump a cargo of British tea into the harbour, in protest of Britain’s attempt to tax imports – the Boston Tea Party. The government responded by closing the port of Boston, dissolving the colonial assembly and placing Massachusetts under military rule. Believing both their liberty and economic prosperity to be under threat, the colonists took action. They set up their own continental assembly, took over their local militias and started stockpiling military supplies. Lexington and Concord: quick facts Who fought? British regulars: 1,500, American colonial militia: 3,500 When? 19 April 1775, th…

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The 1943 battle of Kursk: was it the biggest tank battle in history?
type: item
date: 2024-08-19T15:20:12.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
description: The Second World War saw one of the most epic tank battles in history, as the Germans and the Soviets clashed near Kursk. Julian Humphrys tells the story…
encoded: What was the battle of Kursk? Your quick guide Who fought in the battle of Kursk? Soviets | 1.9 million men, 5,100 tanks, 25,000 guns 2,400 aircraft Germans | 900,000 men, 2,700 tanks and assault guns, 10,000 guns, 1,800 aircraft When and where was the battle of Kursk fought? July–August 1943, Kursk, Ukraine Who were the key players in the battle of Kursk? Between them, these four men commanded around 2.8m men, 8,000 tanks and 4,200 aircraft… Field Marshal Erich Von Manstein Commander of the southern German pincer. He had been key in the defeat of France in 1940 and, earlier in 1943, had stabilised the front after German failure at Stalingrad. Field Marshal Walter Model Commander of the northern German pincer. Nicknamed the Führer’s Fireman, Hitler considered Model one of his best generals. He committed suicide at the end of the war. General Nikolai Vatutin Soviet Commander of the southern sector of the Kursk salient. He was mortally wounded in an attack by Ukrainian nationalists in February 1944. General Konstantin Rokossovsky Soviet Commander of the northern sector of the Kursk salient. He had survived arrest, torture and imprisonment during Stalin’s purge of army officers in 1937. Why was the battle of Kursk fought? The Germans planned to cut off the Kursk salient with a pincer attack What was the outcome of the battle of Kursk? The battle of Kursk was a victory for the Soviet forces Historian Julian Humphrys takes up the story of the battle, the tanks that were used in the clash, and why the Germans lost at Kursk… The summer of 1943 saw the German army mount a risky operation that made even Adolf Hitler nervous. “Whenever I think of this attack, my stomach turns over,” he told a subordinate. Soviet advances after the battle of Stalingrad and subsequent German counter-attacks had left a huge salient, or bulge, sticking out into the German-held territory around Kursk in Ukraine. Hitler’s plan, which was code-named Operation Citadel, was to mount attacks from the n…

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The battle of Worcester: Cromwell’s last battle
type: item
date: 2023-06-17T07:11:16.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
description: The Parliamentarians’ crushing defeat of Charles II’s army at Worcester finally brought to an end more than a decade of civil war in Britain. Battle historian Julian Humphrys explains…
encoded: Climb the 235 steps to the top of the tower of Worcester Cathedral and, once you’ve recovered your breath, you’ll be rewarded with a remarkable bird’s-eye view of the city below you. You’ll also be standing on the very spot where, on 3 September 1651, Charles II watched his tired and outnumbered army prepare to do battle with the forces of Oliver Cromwell. It would be the final battle of the Civil War. After his father’s execution in 1649, the throne had passed, in theory at least, to Charles II. Charles was supported by the Scots, who disapproved of Charles I’s beheading (he had been their king as well) and had fallen out with their former English parliamentarian allies, particularly over religion. Parliament reacted by sending an army north which, led by Oliver Cromwell, defeated the Scots at Dunbar on 3 September 1650. Hostilities dragged on but on 1 January 1651, Charles was crowned king by the Scots at Scone. That July, the English crossed the Forth and, after defeating the Scots at Inverkeithing, cut their army off from its chief source of supplies. Hoping to tempt Charles and his Scottish army into hostile English territory, Cromwell left the border unguarded. Charles took the bait. At the beginning of August, he led his army into England. Read more | 10 key battles of the Civil War The battle of Worcester: in context Who fought? Royalists (Charles II): 10,000 Scots, 2,000 English Commonwealth (Cromwell): 28,000 English Losses Royalists: 2,000 killed, 10,000 captured Commonwealth: 300 killed and wounded Who won? The result was complete destruction of Charles’s army If the young king had hoped that hordes of supporters would rally to his cause, he was to be disappointed. The English may have disliked the Republic, but they hated the Scots even more, and, after nine years’ intermittent fighting, they were thoroughly tired of war. Not only did the hoped-for reinforcements fail to materialise in any great numbers, but Charles’s army began to shrink as Scottish st…

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The battle of Naseby: what happened?
type: item
date: 2023-06-14T10:35:34.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
description: The first outing of parliament's New Model Army irrevocably neutered the royalist cause in the first Civil War…
encoded: With dense fog hanging over Naseby in Northamptonshire, the opposing armies of King Charles I and his disgruntled parliament struggled to see each other across the battlefield. It was 14 June 1645, three years into the Civil War, and so far neither had managed to inflict a decisive defeat on the other. Naseby was where that would change: within three hours, Charles’s chances of reasserting his authority had all but evaporated. Relations between monarch and parliament had broken down in January 1642, when Charles, maintaining his divine rights as king, stormed the House of Commons to arrest five MPs for treason. The men weren’t there, and Charles left unsatisfied and with parliament set against him. Within six months, both factions had raised their standards and were in open warfare. Read more | 10 key battles of the Civil War The prelude to this particular clash came in May 1645 with the royalist sacking of Leicester, after which Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell were swiftly ordered to bring the king to battle. In the fighting that followed, the royalists suffered devastating losses – nearly 1,000 dead or wounded and 5,000 captured. Parliamentary losses were around 400. Blame for the defeat is often laid at the door of the Earl of Carnwath, who grabbed the bridle of Charles’s horse to stop the king from charging into the fray to rally his men. Some of the royalist troops saw this as a sign to retreat, and they abandoned their positions. Charles wasn’t able to muster an army as strong again and within a year parliament had snuffed out all organised royalist resistance. The ling went on the run trying to rally support, until he was finally handed over to parliamentary forces in January 1647. Read more | Killers of the king: the men who dared to execute Charles I This article was first published in the June 2018 edition of BBC History Revealed

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The battle of Brunanburh: the forgotten fight that changed British history
type: item
date: 2023-04-14T15:48:39.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Period
subject: Seven Kings Must Die
subject: The Last Kingdom
subject: TV interest
subject: Viking warfare
description: King Æthelstan’s victory at Brunanburh in AD 937 may just be one of the most important battles ever fought on British soil, yet today it is virtually unknown. Julian Humphrys explores what happened over an entire day of hard and bloody fighting, and why the events on that long-lost battlefield echoed through the centuries
encoded: Half a century after Brunanburh – the victory of the men of Wessex and Mercia over an alliance of Scots, Strathclyde Britons and Norsemen from Ireland – it was still being called “the great battle”. Indeed, it has been described as one of the most defining battles in British history. It helped the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelstan consolidate his hold over his Wessex kingdom and create a more unified England, while it has also been argued that the strong resistance put up by his enemies prevented the whole of Britain from being forcefully united into one imperial power. Despite its significance, few today have heard of the battle of Brunanburh in AD 937, and even fewer think they know where it was fought. The battle of Brunanburh: quick facts When was it fought? AD 937 Where? Great Britain (precise location disputed) Why? Allied invasion of northern England Who was involved? Kingdom of England, led by Æthelstan Kingdom of Scotland, led by Constantine II Kingdom of Strathclyde, led by Owain I Viking kingdom of Dublin, led by Olaf Guthfrithson Who won? After a day of fighting, according to some accounts, it was an English victory What led to the battle of Brunanburh? Ever since he’d been crowned king of the Anglo-Saxons in AD 925, Æthelstan had been steadily extending his authority. After his grandfather, Alfred the Great, had halted the Danish conquest of England, his father, Edward the Elder, recaptured the East Midlands and East Anglia from the Danes in AD 917. Building on these solid foundations, Athelstan pushed north. Two years after becoming king, he took over the last remaining Viking kingdom at York, extending his rule up to the Scottish border. In AD 934, he invaded Scotland, possibly because its king, Constantine, had broken a peace treaty. Read more | Aelfweard and Aethelstan: were they rivals for the throne of Wessex? After gathering his forces at Winchester, he marched north, picking up reinforcements on the way and paying a visit to the shrine of St Cuthbert a…

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The history of school uniforms
type: item
date: 2022-08-31T05:05:00.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Education
description: Julian Humphrys looks at the colourful history of school uniforms...
encoded: When did English children start wearing school uniform? The wearing of a uniform that was distinctive to a particular school can be traced back to Tudor times (though it was by no means a national phenomenon). Take Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, for example. They still wear long blue coats, yellow socks and leather belts – a uniform that differs little from that worn by its original scholars when the school was founded in the reign of Edward VI. So do we Brits have the monopoly on archaic school uniforms? No. In Japan, boys in many secondary schools still wear an outfit modelled on 19th-century Prussian army uniforms, while many girls’ schools still have sailor suits inspired by European naval dress as a uniform. These designs have nothing to do with Japan’s own military past but can be traced back to the 1870s, when Japan was influenced by Europe in the establishment of its formal education system. When did students start to rebel against their uniforms? As early as the 14th century, Oxbridge colleges were legislating against the “excess in apparel” being worn by scholars. However, while over the last 50 years or so students have sought to hide jewellery, thicken ties or shorten skirts, they are by no means united in a desire to abolish their uniforms. The students of Christ’s Hospital are not alone in having voted overwhelmingly to retain theirs. Are school uniforms ‘in’ or ‘out’ in Britain at the moment? They are most definitely in. The vast majority of British schools have some form of compulsory uniform and there even seems to be a move away from the baggy sweatshirt of the 80s and 90s back to the traditional blazer. In its current advice to schools on the subject, the Department of Education barely pauses to discuss why schools should have uniforms (“The Department strongly encourages schools to have a uniform as it can play a valuable role in contributing to the ethos of a school and setting an appropriate tone”) before advising in much greater length o…

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The battle of Blenheim: how did the Duke of Marlborough triumph on the Danube?
type: item
date: 2022-08-12T07:58:53.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
description: The Duke of Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim in 1704 shattered the myth of French invincibility and paved the way for Britain’s emergence as a world power. Battle historian Julian Humphrys explains…
encoded: As evening fell in Bavaria on 13 August 1704, a weary Duke of Marlborough climbed down from his horse and hastily scrawled a message to his wife on the back of an old tavern bill: “I have not time to say more but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen and let her know her army has had a glorious victory.” Marlborough’s triumph cemented his reputation as the greatest general of his age. It also helped prevent France from dominating Europe. When the childless King Charles II of Spain died in 1700, he left his throne – together with all his territory in the Netherlands, Italy and the Americas – to Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV of France. The prospect of Philip eventually becoming king of both France and Spain filled many European states with alarm. To counter Louis XIV's growing dominance, England, the Dutch Republic, Austria and Prussia, and a number of other states, revived the Grand Alliance that had been formed against France in the 1680s. Meanwhile, France allied itself with Spain and Bavaria, and war broke out. The opening years of the conflict were largely indecisive but, in 1704, the Grand Alliance found itself faced with a major crisis: French and Bavarian forces stood poised to capture Vienna and thus knock Austria out of the war. In response to this threat, Marlborough, who was in command of the Allied forces in the Low Countries, acted decisively. He marched his army some 400 kilometres from Flanders to invade Bavaria, where he joined forces with his ally, the Imperial general Prince Eugene of Savoy. It was a triumph of organisation and logistics, and it was in a large part due to the efforts of the Dutch, who laid on much-needed supplies at very short notice. Battle of Blenheim: fast facts When was it fought? 13 August 1704 Where? Blenheim, Bavaria Why? Part of War of Spanish Succession Who fought? France and Bavaria (Marshals Tallard and Marsin) 56,000 men, 90 guns Grand Alliance England, Scotland, Austria, Holland, Denmark, Prussia and ot…

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The battle of Pharsalus: how Julius Caesar defeated Pompey
type: item
date: 2022-08-09T06:00:45.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: It was the ultimate heavyweight contest – Rome’s two greatest leaders in a bloody fight to the finish. Julian Humphrys explains how Julius Caesar emerged as victor…
encoded: Down on paper, it looked like the battle that was about to be fought in central Greece would be an easy victory for Pompey. He had twice as many men as his enemy, seven times as many cavalry and, what’s more, his men were well fed, while those of his enemy were chronically short of supplies. There was just one problem – that enemy was Julius Caesar. Caesar and Pompey had once been allies, but Caesar’s stunning successes in Gaul changed that as Pompey saw his once-unrivalled prestige being eclipsed. Furthermore, many in the Roman Senate, especially the aristocratic optimate faction, saw Caesar’s growing wealth, ambition and popularity as a threat to the Republic in general, and their influence in particular. In a bid to cut him down to size, they ordered Caesar to step down from his military command. Caesar refused and, in 49 BC, in a direct challenge to the authority of the Senate, he crossed the river Rubicon into Italy with a legion of soldiers – an illegal act that led to civil war. Battle of Pharsalus: fast facts When was it fought? 9 August 48 BC Where? Pharsalus, central Greece Who fought in the battle? Caesar: 22,000 men, 1,000 cavalry Pompey: 45,000 men, 7,000 cavalry Why was it fought? Struggle for power between Caesar and Pompey Who won? Victory for Caesar Within weeks he had overrun Italy, helped by the fact that Pompey, the overall commander of the forces opposed to him, had withdrawn to his power base in the east. Caesar then mopped up opposition in Spain before crossing to Macedonia in January to take on Pompey himself. After an initial defeat at Dyrrachium (in modern-day Albania), where his attempt to capture the enemy supply base ended in abject failure, Caesar moved his hungry army into central Greece and confronted Pompey near the town of Pharsalus. Although he had twice as many men as Caesar, and a powerful cavalry force drawn from all over the Roman empire, Pompey was in no hurry to fight. Caesar was isolated in a hostile country and was desperat…

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Dien Bien Phu: the battle that split Vietnam
type: item
date: 2022-07-20T16:00:53.000Z
creator: Julian Humphrys
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
description: France’s catastrophic defeat at Dien Bien Phu in northwest Vietnam in May 1954 ended its hopes of maintaining any influence in Indochina and set the stage for the monumental Vietnam War. Julian Humphrys explains…
encoded: The French had always been rather half-hearted about the war against the Viet Minh. Whereas the brunt of Britain’s post-war military efforts was borne by National Servicemen, the French decided not to send any conscripts to fight in Vietnam. The result was that their generals were always short of boots on the ground and the ‘French’ forces that fought in the war were actually an amalgam of local forces, troops raised from their other colonies, soldiers from the French Foreign Legion and a smattering of French regulars. By 1953, the French government had faced the inevitable. Starved of men and short of popular support, they were never going to be able to force the surrender of the Viet Minh. It was now simply a case of strengthening their position at the bargaining table. To achieve that end, General Henri Navarre, their new military commander in Indochina, was instructed to improve the military situation in the country. Read more in our guide to the Vietnam War Dien Bien Phu: in context French Indochina refers to an amalgamation of colonial territories in southeast Asia ruled by France from 1887 onwards. During World War II, the colony was occupied by Japan, who ousted the French. Following the Japanese surrender at the war’s end, Vietnamese independence was declared by the Viet Minh, a communist coalition led by Hô Chi Minh. However, France quickly resumed control, causing the outbreak of a war of independence in 1946 – the First Indochina War. The battle of Dien Bien Phu extinguished French influence in the region. When? 20 November 1953 to 7 May 1954 Where? Dien Bien Phu, northwest Vietnam Who fought? Viet Minh (General Võ Nguyên Giáp) 50,000 troops, 15,000 support troops, 250,000 civilians French Republic (Colonel Christian de Castries) 2,800 French, 2,900 Foreign Legion, 2,900 Africans, 5,500 Indochinese Who won? Viet Minh victory Losses: Viet Minh c23,000 killed and wounded French c2,000 killed, 6,000 wounded, 11,000 prisoners Although Navarre planned to use …

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