HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-04-23T19:52:42.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: How are popes elected? Here's what happens after a pope dies
items: The balloon-riding Victorians who courted disaster: the true story behind The Aeronauts
items: How to go on a medieval pilgrimage
items: Ancient Roman slavery: what was life like as an enslaved person?
items: Did Coco Chanel collaborate with the Nazis during WW2?
items: The real history behind The Zone of Interest: Did Rudolf Höss really live next door to Auschwitz?
items: Alternate history: what if James II and VII had kept his throne?
items: Bayard Rustin: the quiet force behind the March on Washington
items: Israel’s Iron Lady: the real story of Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur War
items: Countdown to disaster: a timeline of the last hours of Pompeii

How are popes elected? Here's what happens after a pope dies
type: item
date: 2025-04-21T09:09:01.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: General History
subject: Period
description: What comes after a pope dies? Step through the doors of Vatican into the conclave – the secretive, ritualistic and sometimes scandalous process that turns a cardinal into the next pontiff
encoded: From the death (or more rarely, resignation) of a pope to the famous white smoke drifting out of a Sistine Chapel chimney, the centuries-old process of electing a new pope is defined by ritual and ceremony, but also secrecy. Taking place behind closed doors, it falls to an assembly of cardinals – a conclave – to vote for the new head of the Catholic Church. What happens when a pope dies? The death of a pope has to be confirmed by a medic, but it is only official once a particular action is taken by the camerlengo – the cardinal who oversees the running of the Vatican’s property and revenue. The camerlengo calls out the pope’s baptismal name three times and only when he receives no response can he declare the death. Traditionally, the camerlengo have also tapped the pontiff’s head with a silver hammer. He then notifies both senior church officials and the general public. The pope’s apartment will be locked – according to a historic practice that prevented looting – and preparations are made for the symbolic destruction of the pope’s ring and seal, signalling the end of his authority. The pope must be buried between four and six days after the death, while the official period of mourning is observed for nine days. Not long after that, the cardinals gather for the conclave. How is a new pope chosen? The conclave explained A conclave is the gathering of cardinals summoned to the Vatican to elect a new pope. Not all members of the College of Cardinals, the most senior clergy of the Catholic Church below the papacy itself, are eligible to participate due to age restrictions. The word derives from the Latin for ‘with a key’, referring to how the cardinals are literally shut away from the wider world while they vote. Conclaves nearly always take place in the event of a pope’s death. Since Gregory XII in 1415, there has only been one papal resignation: Benedict XVI, who, in 2013, left the Holy See citing his advanced age. Read more | Holy smoke, antipopes and power struggles…

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The balloon-riding Victorians who courted disaster: the true story behind The Aeronauts
type: item
date: 2024-09-04T15:43:50.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
description: In 1862, at a time when interest in ballooning was still at its height, two Victorian men began a flight to make a series of scientific readings. Their hope was to better understand the weather, but, as Nige Tassell explores, their adventurous and record-breaking ascent almost ended in disaster – a story that inspired the 2019 Eddie Redmayne adventure, The Aeronauts…
encoded: The sight of a hot air balloon was a popular Victorian spectacle, so the quiet scenes on 5 September 1862 would have made for a curious sight. On the outskirts of the Black Country town of Wolverhampton, two men climbed into the basket of a large balloon, but this was not to be a flight for public entertainment or simple pleasure. Armed with scientific instruments and packing a cargo of six pigeons, the men had loftier intentions. Who was James Glaisher? The more senior of the two was the fabulously bewhiskered scientist James Glaisher, the superintendent of the Magnetic and Meteorological Department at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, who would go on to be a founder member of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. His co-pilot was Henry Coxwell, a highly experienced balloonist. The day’s flight was one of many the men had made together – part of a series of 28 balloon ascents commissioned by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Who was Amelia Wren? Glaisher and Coxwell's 1862 flight was the subject of the 2019 film The Aeronauts, starring Eddie Redmayne as James Glaisher. Henry Coxwell was replaced by the fictional Amelia Wren (played by Felicity Jones) who did not exist. Her story was an amalgamation of other female aviators of the day, such as Sophie Blanchard, the first female professional balloonist. What were Glaisher and Coxwell trying to achieve? Glaisher and Coxwell’s mission was to measure the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere to better understand how this governed the weather – perhaps the scientist saw himself as a latter-day Christopher Columbus or Ferdinand Magellan, keen to explore what he called the “aerial ocean”, which offered him “a boundless sea of enquiry”. The weather that September day proved to be kinder than on earlier attempts, especially two months earlier when the pair’s flight plans had been scuppered by unusually high winds for July. At three minutes past 1pm, they released the tethers of their balloon…

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How to go on a medieval pilgrimage
type: item
date: 2024-07-23T14:22:35.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Are you a medieval worshipper looking to demonstrate the strength of your devotion? A pilgrimage could be the answer – and we have the ultimate guide to planning your trip
encoded: Where to go There are many reasons for going on pilgrimage. You may wish to undertake the journey to show your religious devotion. You may be doing penance for sins you’ve committed. You may wish to be cured of a serious medical condition or illness, or to gain a cure for someone else. You may wish to make a political protest: to visit the tombs of Simon de Montfort or King Henry VI, because you supported their causes. Or you may just be in need of a holiday and a little adventure. But pilgrimages cost time and money. Most people cannot spend long away from their work, their children or their farm animals. Going a great distance means either walking, which is wearying; travelling in a carrier’s cart for which you have to pay; or riding a horse, which you must own or hire. Then how are you to find food or a bed? You can beg, which is hazardous, or you may be able to stay in a monastery, but often the only alternatives will be inns or private houses charging money. This means that, for most people, pilgrimage is a local matter. You go out for the day, often with friends and neighbours, to visit a nearby abbey, church or chapel. You take a picnic and get home by nightfall. Long pilgrimages to the most famous shrines are chiefly made by the wealthy, who can afford to take time off and have money to spend, or by very devout poor people who support themselves as best they can along the way. Local pilgrimage places are innumerable. Many churches have images of Christ or the Virgin Mary, which are reckoned to be especially holy and where your prayer may be answered. Small chapels are also popular, usually on their festival day once a year, especially ones in romantic places such as hilltops, woods or caves. If you have the means to travel further, there is also a wide choice of places to go. Canterbury Cathedral, with the shrine of Thomas Becket, canonised in 1173, is the most famous and busiest shrine of all, attracting pilgrims from all over Britain and from the Continent…

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Ancient Roman slavery: what was life like as an enslaved person?
type: item
date: 2024-05-01T14:30:13.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Roman Britain course
subject: Roman Britain
subject: Slavery
description: Whether you worked in the mines or as a concubine, slavery in ancient Rome was a repressive and cruel practice. Here we explore the dangerous world of forced labour...
encoded: The Roman empire was hugely dependent on forced labour. It was a key foundation on which ancient Rome’s power, wealth and influence was built. What jobs did Roman enslaved people do? A great many Roman enslaved people were set to work in menial and manual jobs – including agriculture, mining and construction. As historian Philip Matyszak explains, these types of jobs could be particularly brutal. “Being sent to the mines was a drawn-out death sentence,” he says “They worked in very dangerous, very unhealthy conditions lit by oil lamps, constantly breathing in fumes. They worked in a state of acute misery.” Unfortunately, those working above ground in agriculture fared little better. “They were treated by the farmers as part of the livestock; offered as much compassion as was given to the cattle, the sheep and the goats.” Some of those enslaved, however, undertook work in what would now be considered white-collar jobs, such as teaching or accounting. For instance, middle-class Roman families, in their admiration of Greek culture, would often seek out educated slaves from Greece as home tutors for their children. Enslaved people from lands deemed to be of lesser cultural worth, such as Britain or Germany, were generally less attractive when it came to work that carried with it a level of responsibility. What jobs did enslaved people do in ancient Rome? Here are three examples... Agricultural slaves Agricultural slaves toiled in the fields and endured terrible conditions. As well as being worked to the bone and malnourished, they were also commonly chained up and forced to sleep in ergastula (prison barracks). Praegustator (food taster) Roman feasts boasted flowing wine, sumptuous dishes – and the threat of poison. In the imperial household, a praegustator would sample all the delicacies before they touched the emperor’s lips, to make sure they weren’t poisoned. Nomenclator (name caller) At parties, feasts and political functions, a nomenclator’s job was to tell their …

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Did Coco Chanel collaborate with the Nazis during WW2?
type: item
date: 2024-02-14T11:02:46.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: TV interest
description: Coco Chanel is one of the most famous fashion designers of the 20th century, known for her haute couture and legendary fragrances. Her life during the Second World War, however, has led to much intrigue – for very different reasons. Nige Tassell explores the real-life figure featured in Apple TV+’s The New Look…
encoded: Coco Chanel is one of the most famous fashion designers of the 20th century, and was a rival of another fashion titan – Christian Dior. She's become known for her haute couture and legendary fragrances, particularly Chanel No. 5. Chanel's life during the Second World War is depicted in Apple TV+’s series The New Look, released on 14 February. Set against the backdrop of occupied France, it explores the darker side to Chanel – including her collaboration with the Nazis. Coco Chanel's early life Born Gabrielle Boheur Chanel in western France in 1883, Coco Chanel would become one of the most famous fashion designers of the 20th century. Having grown up in straitened circumstances (her father was an itinerant peddler of clothes, her mother was a laundrywoman), she acquired the nickname ‘Coco’ during her time as a café singer in Paris in her twenties, her signature song being Has anyone seen Coco? Also working as a seamstress by day, Chanel became the mistress of Étienne Balsan, an heir to a textile empire and, accordingly, began to revolve around higher social circles. A subsequent affair with a wealthy Englisman, Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel’, brought his investment in her career as a designer – and the opening of her first shop in 1910. Her reputation swiftly grew and, for the next couple of decades, Chanel’s designs became known for their relaxed chic. In 1921, she also launched the legendary fragrance Chanel No 5. Did Coco Chanel really collaborate with Nazis? When war broke out in 1939, Chanel brought her highly successful business to a close, convinced that fashion was an uncommercial pursuit in time of war. Such was the extent of her empire that as many as 4,000 employees were suddenly out of work. Chanel later expressed her regret at closing down her fashion house. “How could I suppose there would still be people who would buy dresses?” she explained. “I was so stupid, such a dummy about life … Some people sold dresses all during the war.” After the Germans invaded France…

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The real history behind The Zone of Interest: Did Rudolf Höss really live next door to Auschwitz?
type: item
date: 2024-02-02T09:55:49.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Holocaust
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: As Nazi-next-door thriller The Zone of Interest arrives in cinemas, we explore the life of Rudolf Höss – the Auschwitz commandant who set up a family home just beyond the walls of the infamous concentration camp
encoded: One of the chief perpetrators of the Holocaust, Rudolf Höss was the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, inside which around one million Jews were murdered during Second World War. Höss is the subject of a new film written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest, in which his peculiar home life is examined. The Höss family lived in a luxurious villa directly next door to the gas chambers and crematoria of the camp. There, Rudolf (Christian Friedel) and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), constructed an apparent idyll for their children, despite the horrors taking place just beyond the garden wall. The film is derived from Martin Amis’s novel of the same name, though the plot is slightly different, telling the story of a Nazi officer who becomes infatuated with the wife of Auschwitz’s commandant; the commandant, Paul Doll – a fictionalised version of Rudolf Höss. View oEmbed on the source website Who was Rudolf Höss? Rudolf Höss was the commandant of Auschwitz between May 1940 and November 1943, and returned to the camp between May 1944 and January 1945 to supervise the extermination of Hungarian Jews. Read more | The liberation of Auschwitz, 75 years on: what happened and how do we remember the Holocaust? He was from a military family, and at the age 14 joined the German army to fight in the First World War. By the time he was 17, he was already a non-commissioned officer. He was awarded both the Iron Crescent and the Iron Cross. After evading capture at the end of the war, Höss joined a number of nationalist paramilitary groups. He became a member of the Nazi Party in 1922 and, two years later, was convicted of the murder of a local schoolteacher believed to be supplying intelligence to the French occupational authorities. Sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, he served four. Within a year of his release, he married Hedwig Hensel, with whom he started a family. On the podcast | Nazi Germany: everything you wanted to know Rudolf Höss in WW2 In…

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Alternate history: what if James II and VII had kept his throne?
type: item
date: 2023-11-06T12:45:54.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
description: Nige Tassell asks Professor Ted Vallance about the future of both monarchy and state religion had James II and VII not been usurped in 1688
encoded: In late 1688, King James II of England and Ireland, James VII of Scotland, saw his near-four-year reign drift to an end, after which he disappeared into exile. Replacing him on the throne were his son-in-law William III of Orange, the leader of the Dutch Republic, and William’s wife, James’s daughter Mary II. In England, the change in monarchs, known as the Glorious Revolution, was achieved with little bloodshed. James chose to disband his army, allowing William and his troops, having landed in Devon, to make their way to London relatively unimpeded. It might have been a largely peaceful surrender of power, but it was a significant one, too. William and Mary’s joint reign broke the notion of the divine right of kings by introducing a ‘contract’ between the monarchy and the people, as represented by Parliament. James, in contrast, had favoured a tighter concentration of power within one individual: himself. Had James repelled William and Mary’s invasion, what kind of monarchy might have developed under him? In context: the rule of James II and VII James II and VII may have ruled for fewer than four years, but his reign marked a turbulent time, both politically and religiously. Aiming to both curb the powers of Parliament and strengthen the hand of his fellow Catholics, he encountered significant opposition from politicians and clergymen alike. This tumult was resolved by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which saw James’s removal from the throne and his replacement by his daughter Mary and her husband, William III of Orange. England was once again under Protestant rule, and the notion of the divine right of kings was punctured forever. “First of all, we need to understand James’s aims for Parliament,” explains Professor Ted Vallance of the University of Roehampton and author of The Glorious Revolution: 1688 – Britain’s Fight For Liberty (Little, Brown, 2006). “He aimed to fashion a House of Commons that would vote for the repeal of the Penal Laws, which excluded Catho…

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Bayard Rustin: the quiet force behind the March on Washington
type: item
date: 2023-11-03T16:25:51.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: TV interest
description: A lifelong advocate of peaceful protest, Bayard Rustin would become one of the driving forces behind the US civil rights movement – though his sexuality forced him into the shadows. With the arrival of the Netflix film about his life, Nige Tassell explores the real Rustin
encoded: Who was Bayard Rustin? An advocate of pacifist agitation, Bayard Rustin was a pivotal figure within the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s. He was not only the leading force behind the highly significant March on Washington in 1963, but he was also a close adviser and confidante of Dr Martin Luther King until the latter’s assassination in Memphis in 1968. But Rustin remains a less-heralded figure of the civil rights movement, who faced both discrimination and opposition due to his status as an openly gay man. Despite working behind-the-scenes rather than in the limelight, his legacy is that of a lifelong commitment to pacifism and social justice. How did Bayard Rustin become involved in the civil rights movement? Born in 1912, the young Bayard Rustin was raised by his maternal grandparents in West Chester near Philadelphia. He had first-hand contact with some of the leading African-American activists of the day through his grandmother, Julia. Julia Rustin was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the organisation’s leaders, including such luminaries as WEB Du Bois, were frequent visitors to the family home. The influence of his grandmother and these senior NAACP figures on Rustin was instant and direct. During his teenage years, he campaigned against the injustice of local Jim Crow laws that stymied the rights and freedoms of West Chester’s African-American population. “He had a strong inner spirit,” one of his school friends once observed. “Some of us were ready to give up the fight and accept the status quo. But he never would.” His years of study at Wilberforce University, an African-American college in Ohio, ended before Rustin took his final exams – he was expelled for organising a strike. In 1936, he moved to Harlem to enroll at City College of New York. Again, though, activism usurped academia and Rustin became deeply involved in the Scottsboro Case – a campaign for the release of nine …

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Israel’s Iron Lady: the real story of Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur War
type: item
date: 2023-10-05T14:25:45.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: New film Golda delves into Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's handling of the 1973 Yom Kippur War
encoded: One of the signatories to the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence, Golda Meir would eventually become Israel’s first female prime minister. Born in Kiev, and later immigrating first to the US and then to Palestine, she was part of Israel’s founding generation. Her tenure as prime minister, from 1969 until 1974, was not without controversy – within three months she had claimed there was “no such thing as Palestinians”, later prompting a claim she was misquoted. But her time in office was most famously marked by the Yom Kippur War, the fallout of which would bring an end to her political career. Director Guy Nattiv’s film Golda, starring Helen Mirren as the chain-smoking prime minister, is a character biopic that homes in on those three weeks of the Yom Kippur War, the defining period of her premiership. View oEmbed on the source website Who was the real Golda Meir? Born Goldie Mabovitch in Kiev on 3 May 1898, Golda Meir was born into a Ukrainian-Jewish family, the second surviving child of Moshe Mabovitch and Blume Neiditch. In 1906, Moshe moved his family to Milwaukee, having spent the previous three years in the United States himself, working various jobs to raise enough money for the family to settle in the Midwest. The young Golda fitted in well into her new community and, in junior school, quickly developed a reputation for activism, co-founding the American Young Sisters Society to help her fellow students afford textbooks. She was just ten years old at the time. After her high school years in both Milwaukee and Denver, Meir attended a teaching college back in Wisconsin and was working in a Yiddish-speaking school by 1917, the same year that she became a naturalised US citizen and got married. When did Golda Meir return to Palestine? In 1921, Meir and her husband Morris Myerson migrated to Palestine, with her connection to Labour Zionism – the socialist variant of Zionism – very strong by this point. After time spent living and working on a kibbutz, a form…

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Countdown to disaster: a timeline of the last hours of Pompeii
type: item
date: 2023-08-23T22:51:56.000Z
creator: Nige Tassell
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Death
subject: Life in ancient Rome
description: Pompeii was a bustling Roman city, home to thousands of people living in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. Nige Tassell charts the terrifying events of AD 79 that saw Pompeii, and nearby Herculaneum, transformed into an ash-covered hellscape of destruction and death
encoded: Four days before the eruption 11:00 Minor earth tremors gently shake Pompeii, but not enough for any of its citizens to stop going about their day-to day business in this bustling, prosperous city. Minor earthquakes are common here in the region of Campania; the residents barely notice. The collective opinion is that there’s nothing untoward about this morning’s seismic activity. This is despite the enormous and devastating earthquake that hit Pompeii in living memory. In AD 62 (sometimes recorded as AD 63), the city was severely damaged and a tenth of its 20,000-strong population killed. Almost all of its adult population will have lost at least one loved one or friend in that giant quake, but an air of possible complacency pervades its rebuilt streets. The markets are busy, the trade is brisk. Everything appears to be normal. View oEmbed on the source website First day of the eruption 10:00 Those minor tremors are still being felt across Pompeii, and have been for the last four days. Yet its citizens still appear to be unconcerned. No one is heeding what will later be interpreted as warning signs. The markets are still busy, the trade is still brisk. It’s another typical morning without note. But then comes lunchtime... 13:00 Shortly after noon, as residents are stopping to refuel, Mount Vesuvius roars into life. Inside the mountain, the pressure caused by molten rock – the origin of the tremors felt over the past few days – has grown to such a point that there’s no way back. It has to escape, and so Vesuvius erupts for the first time in several centuries. A huge column of volcanic rock and ash is sent soaring as high as 10 miles into the air. What had been a typically cloudless summer’s day is very quickly extinguished by a cloud of volcanic debris, spreading swiftly to block out the early afternoon sun. It is the darkest of clouds for what will be the darkest of days for Pompeii and its residents. The explosion is unfathomably violent, unfathomably large. Each a…

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