HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-04-18T14:31:50.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The first ‘catastrophic’ Dunkirk: why the British Army fled to the sea in a deadly 19th-century retreat
items: The Spanish Inquisition: everything you wanted to know
items: The history of Madrid: from the Moors to modernity
items: “A dissonant orchestra of ambitions and intentions” | Christopher Clark on the revolutions of 1848
items: Kwasi Kwarteng: "Wars are bloody expensive – so the only way nations can buy what they need is by printing their own money"
items: Spain’s tumultuous story
items: The bombing of Guernica: who was responsible?
items: John of Gaunt: The man who would be king
items: “We were trying to find stories that tell us about resilience – history as a kind of therapy”: Bettany Hughes on finding hidden treasures during Covid
items: Two worlds collide: Spanish conquistadors and Aztecs

The first ‘catastrophic’ Dunkirk: why the British Army fled to the sea in a deadly 19th-century retreat
type: item
date: 2025-04-18T14:31:50.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: During the harsh winter of 1808, a small force of British soldiers found itself strategically outflanked by a French army commanded by none other than Emperor Napoleon. Under the leadership of Sir John Moore, they embarked on a desperate retreat across the snow-laden and icy landscapes of northern Spain, seeking safety and survival. Matthew Doherty tells their story…
encoded: On Christmas Eve 1808, a British army in Spain was marked for annihilation. For the past week, around 25,000 British soldiers had been skirmishing against elements of the French Grande Armée, and had got the better of their opponents during the series of small engagements. But now their commander, General Sir John Moore, ordered them to run away. It was a tough pill to swallow for the proud British. The grumbling began almost immediately. “Why won’t Moore let us fight them?” was the cry heard by many a British officer from his men. But Moore had the full picture and knew that even his tough little army could never hope to take on the masses of French troops storming towards him. Worse still, the dreaded Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was at their head, eager to destroy the hated British. A relentless pursuit For Napoleon, Spain was a backwater – a minor player in modern European politics. Yet it could not simply be ignored. Sharing a border with France made it an ideal staging post for British military expeditions aimed at bringing down his imperial rule, and so in the winter of 1808, Napoleon attempted to conquer Spain and eject the British army from the continent. Napoleon knew that making a terrible example of Moore’s force would further isolate his Spanish adversaries and bring their uncooperative junta government to heel. What was the Peninsular War? The Peninsular War (1808-1814), a key part of the Napoleonic Wars, saw British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces fight against the invading First French Empire in the Iberian Peninsula, ultimately contributing to Napoleon's downfall. Sir John Moore was a veteran of several hard-fought campaigns in the Caribbean and Ireland. He had a deep love for the British army. Indeed, it is Moore’s humanity that shines through much of his personal correspondence. Historian Arthur Bryant described him as a man who held true to the belief that “the British soldier could be made perfect by evoking all that is finest in man – physical, m…

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The Spanish Inquisition: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2024-07-21T06:51:57.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: Giles Tremlett answers listener questions about the Spanish Inquisition, to uncover the real history behind the sinister and bloodthirsty 'Black Legend' of Spain
encoded: The era of the Spanish Inquisition is most commonly remembered as a period of widespread fear and paranoia, where communities turned on each other and torture was rife. But how true is this popular perception? Speaking to Emily Briffett, Giles Tremlett answers listener questions on the Spanish Inquisition, from the real history behind the sinister and bloodthirsty 'Black Legend' of Spain, to whether there was there any hope of survival for people singled out by the inquisitors...

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The history of Madrid: from the Moors to modernity
type: item
date: 2023-09-19T06:21:42.000Z
creator: Jules Stewart
subject: General History
subject: Period
subject: History's greatest cities podcast series
description: The Spanish capital is a city of water and war, marked by conflict but glorying in culture. Jules Stewart guides us through the story of Madrid.
encoded: The earliest recorded history of the place now called Madrid dates from the ninth century. At that time, it was the site of a Moorish fortress called Magerit – in old Arabic, “place of water”. The abundance of water would prove key in the development of the settlement that became the capital of a united Spain. Long before the Moors, came the Romans. They invaded the Iberian peninsula from the late third century BC, but paid little attention to this little backwater; they were after much bigger prizes such as Cádiz. The Visigoths, arriving in the sixth century AD, integrated it into their kingdom of Toledo, but even so it remained an insignificant outpost for many years. Madrid’s shifting religions In AD 711, a force of Arabs and Berbers crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from north Africa, launching a wave of conquest that created the vast, Muslim-ruled kingdom of Al-Andalus, spanning most of the Iberian peninsula. The following century, Moorish emir Muhammad I ordered the construction of a fortified citadel at the place dubbed Magerit, on a site now occupied by Madrid’s Royal Palace. Little evidence of the Moorish occupation remains today, though you can find some sections of their wall near the palace and La Almudena Cathedral, in Emir Mohamed I Park. History's Greatest Cities: A HistoryExtra podcast series This companion piece accompanies our podcast miniseries History's Greatest Cities. Listen to the full episode on Florence with Jules Stewart and Paul Bloomfield, then explore the entire series History’s Greatest Cities: Madrid All History's Greatest Cities episodes The settlement gained prominence when Alfonso VI of León and Castile took Magerit from the Moors in 1085 during the so-called Reconquista (Reconquest) of Spain by Christian forces. One traditional tale recounts an incident involving the soldier who became known as El Gato – ‘the cat’. On reaching Magerit’s defences – so the story goes – he jumped off his horse, scampered up the wall, ripped down the Moo…

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“A dissonant orchestra of ambitions and intentions” | Christopher Clark on the revolutions of 1848
type: item
date: 2023-05-10T07:34:20.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
description: Christopher Clark talks to Matt Elton about the revolutions that swept Europe in the 19th century, revealing how their speed and synchronicity alarmed authorities across the continent
encoded: Before we explore the causes of the revolutions of 1848, could you sketch out where and when they took place? In January 1848, revolution broke out in Palermo and Naples, two major cities of what was then called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This happened against a backdrop of demonstrations and protests that had been building across Europe. And then came the really big news: the revolution in Paris in the last week of February, which led to the flight of the king, Louis Philippe I, from the city and the collapse of the French monarchy. Read more | 1848: the year of revolutions After that, the revolutions enter a kind of fusion phase in which there are chain reactions of uprisings: in Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest. It just went on and on, cascading across the continent. Rewinding to explore some of the causes, then, how important was poverty as a factor in the lead-up to these revolutions? Poverty was the primary issue, and there was a degree of moral panic around it – although people at the time used the term “pauperisation” rather than poverty. The reason for that distinction was that, although commentators believed poverty had always existed in human societies, they thought that what was happening in the 1830s and 1840s was something new – a kind of systematic impoverishment of large sectors of society which had previously been able to make a living. Those people were now having to work all the hours god sent, but were still unable to make ends meet or feed their children. One of the chief sources of anxiety in cities was that the poor were getting poorer, and it wasn’t clear how far that process could go before it began to eat away at the bonds holding society together. Do terms that we recognise today, such as “liberal” or “radical”, map on to this era, or do we need to shift our understanding of its politics to make sense of the upheaval that was to come? They do in the sense that modern Europe is born out of that world. But the differences are also s…

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Kwasi Kwarteng: "Wars are bloody expensive – so the only way nations can buy what they need is by printing their own money"
type: item
date: 2022-09-28T12:45:44.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Money
description: In this interview from 2014, Kwasi Kwarteng talks to Matt Elton about his book War and Gold, which explores how new wealth fosters war, in turn leading nations to debt and failure – and why this pattern is repeated through history
encoded: The book starts with the discovery of the Americas. What impact did this have on Europe’s economy? It was hugely transformational. Silver and gold flooded Europe, pushing up prices. This was a great stimulus to business activity: if you are opening a shop in an environment in which prices are rising, there’s a big incentive to trade. In many ways, the discovery of the New World kickstarted Europe’s economy. You argue, however, that there were also less desirable results of this boom. Spain relied on these endless flows of silver and gold, and its industry and agriculture fell behind as its people became addicted to these imports. The thing about becoming rich is that you are aware of your money, so spend it: the fact that Spain was extracting riches from the Americas, causing prices to rise, meant that they had to spend more money. This influx of wealth coincided with the military revolution, when the hardware of fighting became much more expensive. So while Spain was getting richer the cost of its endeavours ballooned, and it borrowed money to try to meet the shortfall. At this point, politics became involved. Charles V of Spain inherited a vast empire through a series of dynastic alliances made by his grandfather and his parents. The big question in the Europe of the early 16th century – the backdrop to all that’s familiar to us in British history – was how to accommodate this superpower. For his part, Charles had to spend a lot of money to maintain armies in several theatres of war, which put heavy strains on his kingdom. Was it this international rivalry that led Spain to overspend? It was all about strategic dominance of Europe. What drove Spanish spending was its bid for hegemonic mastery, while the other powers in Europe tried to drag it down. In a sense, that’s what British foreign policy of the period was about: an attempt to limit the mighty powers in Europe. This pattern was repeated through the 17th century, with the burgeoning power and military campaig…

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Spain’s tumultuous story
type: item
date: 2022-05-04T11:34:09.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Giles Tremlett explores the turbulent history of Spain, a country shaped by influences from across the world
encoded: Giles Tremlett explores the turbulent history of Spain. Speaking to Elinor Evans, he explores how its position on Europe's south-western corner has exposed it to influences from all over the world, giving it a history unlike any other nation on the continent. Giles Tremlett is the author of España: A Brief History of Spain (Apollo, 2022) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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The bombing of Guernica: who was responsible?
type: item
date: 2022-04-25T15:41:41.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
description: The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War heralded a terrible new age of warfare. But who was the main culprit – Hitler or Franco? Paul Preston considers the evidence...
encoded: From 4.40 to 7.45 in the late afternoon of Monday 26 April 1937, the small Basque town of Guernica was destroyed by sustained bombing attacks by Adolf Hitler’s Condor Legion and Mussolini’s Aviazione Legionaria. The operation was supervised by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, the Condor Legion’s chief of staff, a brilliant and ruthless Prussian aristocrat with a doctorate in engineering. A cousin of the First World War fighter ace ‘the Red Baron’ (Manfred von Richthofen), Wolfram had planned the entire operation as an experiment in terror – as he would later mastermind the Blitzkrieg in Poland and France. His choice of projectiles aimed to cause the greatest possible number of civilian victims. A combination of explosive bombs and incendiaries rained on the residential sector of the town, which was largely made of wood. And to prevent the fires being put out, the municipal water tanks and the fire-station were the first targets. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/04/GettyImages-92303411-6767fc2-e1650902167905.jpg" width="1024" height="752" alt="General Franco (centre) pictured in August 1937" title="General Franco (centre) pictured in August 1937. The general’s attempts to deny responsibility for the bombing of Guernica turned into a public-relations disaster for his forces. (Image by Getty Images)" /> Terrified civilians fleeing to the surrounding fields were herded back into Guernica by the machine-gun strafing of German fighter aircraft that circled the town in what Richthofen called “the ring of fire”. Monday was market day in Guernica. Between the townspeople, refugees, peasants bringing goods to the market, and train loads of visitors from Bilbao coming to buy food, there were at least 10,000 people crammed into the town that day. They were attacked by 28 German and three Italian bombers together with 10 Heinkel He 51 and 12 Fiat CR32 biplane fighters and possibly six of the first ever Messerschmitt Bf109s. It was an opera…

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John of Gaunt: The man who would be king
type: item
date: 2021-09-29T07:05:00.000Z
creator: Helen Carr
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
description: How could a younger son of Edward III make his mark? An international conquest promised to do the trick – if he could pull it off. Helen Carr follows John of Gaunt’s extraordinary mission to capture the throne of Castile in the 1380s
encoded: On 25 July 1386, three young men disembarked from a Portuguese galley at the port of Corunna. Landing on the northwest Spanish coast were Ralph Bulmere, just old enough to receive his inheritance at home; Baldwin Saint George from Cambridgeshire; and Thomas Chaucer, son of writer and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer. They had come to win their spurs in one of the most ambitious military campaigns of the late 14th century: the invasion of Castile by John of Gaunt. At that time, Castile was the largest of four Christian kingdoms in the Iberian peninsula. Sandwiched between Portugal to the west and Aragon and Navarre to the east, and with the Muslim emirate of Granada to the south, Castile also encompassed León and coastal Galicia, site of Corunna. And in the 14th century it was embroiled in an interminable tussle for succession between England and France: the Hundred Years’ War. Castile’s involvement had peaked two decades earlier with the pitched battle of Najéra in Navarre on 3 April 1367, in which the army of the Black Prince, heir to English king Edward III, charged across a dusty plain at Castilian and French forces – and emerged victorious. Leading the vanguard was John of Gaunt, the Black Prince’s younger brother. Najéra was his formative experience of battle, and sparked a 20-year-long obsession with Spanish conquest. Cruel twist of fate John was not only a prince but also the most powerful magnate in England, with wealth and influence to rival the crown. His possessions included England’s richest duchy, Lancaster, and he also inherited lands in northern France as well as northern and southern England. An astute politician, John was deeply loyal to his family and his father Edward III’s martial interests, and spent his early career as a diplomat. He saw Castile as the gateway to both personal power and Plantagenet expansion into Europe. An opportunity soon fell into his lap. In 1369, Enrique Trastámara, a French ally and claimant to the crown of Castile, murdered his…

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“We were trying to find stories that tell us about resilience – history as a kind of therapy”: Bettany Hughes on finding hidden treasures during Covid
type: item
date: 2021-09-10T13:47:54.000Z
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Historian and classicist Bettany Hughes tells us about her series Bettany Hughes’ Treasures Of The World and, in particular, some of the remarkable sights she saw on Gibraltar…
encoded: Q: The series was made when much of the world was in lockdown. What was it like filming in these circumstances? Bettany Hughes: We formed a very tight filming bubble, and we didn’t have a single positive Covid test. We thought, “What can we do, in a small way, when people seem to be really missing seeing other places?” More than that, it’s been a time when people are asking, “Who are we as humans? As a society, how do we work? And how do we survive?” We were genuinely trying to find stories that tell us about resilience – almost history as a kind of therapy. What were some of the highlights when you visited Gibraltar? I was blown away by the incredible Neanderthal remains. Specialists know about them, but I think the whole world needs to know. We saw two sites: Gorham’s Cave and Vanguard Cave, sea caves. A couple of years before we arrived, a Neanderthal footprint had been discovered, a footprint in the sand, which was baked by the sun. Remarkable. Then there’s so-called ‘Neanderthal art’, which is abstract. There are really incredible scourings in the rock face, and they’re definitely 100% consciously done, taking hours of work. Professor Clive Finlayson [director of the Gibraltar Museum] shared with us the idea that amazing art could well be an exact replica of the lines of the palm of the hand. They were creatures who imagined a world. And turning to Covid again, it’s our imaginations that have really got us through this crisis. whether it’s imagining a life beyond Covid, or scientists imagining solutions to the crisis. Professor Finlayson makes the point that many of us carry Neanderthal DNA in our genes. So in some ways, Neanderthals haven’t gone extinct, they’re living with us. What was their world like? Presumably, the sea level was lower and it was colder. Not that cold. At the caves we visited, they would have been looking out over a kind of savannah plain and hunting big animals. There’s a hyenas’ lair in one of the caves, and they discovered the remains o…

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Two worlds collide: Spanish conquistadors and Aztecs
type: item
date: 2021-08-05T15:50:20.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Aztecs
subject: Tudor exploration
description: Five centuries ago, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés met Aztec emperor Moctezuma – a moment often depicted as the start of an unstoppable, inevitable European colonisation of the Americas. Caroline Dodds Pennock explains why the story is much more complex
encoded: On 8 November 1519, on a wide wooden causeway outside the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, the tlatoani (ruler) Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin – better known today as Moctezuma – and the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés came face to face for the first time. The meeting powerfully symbolises the confrontation between the great civilisations of Europe and the Americas: Cortés, standing as representative of the king of Spain and newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V; and Moctezuma, the ruler of an empire of millions. It was the start of a series of events that led to the downfall of the Aztec empire, and to the Spanish conquest and colonisation of Central and South America. The epic myth of the Spanish conquest has become famous in history: the daring adventurer Cortés and a few hundred plucky conquistadors who defied overwhelming odds to vanquish the brutal Aztec empire. But this is no simple tale of inevitable European dominance. This was a moment when events were finely poised, before the balance of power shifted decisively towards the Europeans. And, for the players in this delicate game, it was not at all apparent who held the strongest cards. The meeting on the causeway has been depicted as emblematic of the meeting between the Old World and the New. But various aspects hint at the complexities and nuances of the encounter. After Cortés rode his horse onto the causeway he seems to have been kept waiting while Aztec nobles conducted a ceremonial welcome: each saluted him in courtly Nahuatl language before bowing low to touch and kiss the ground. It must have been an incredible scene, with thousands of Aztecs watching from canoes and rooftops, hoping to catch a glimpse of the newcomers; the causeway, too, was packed with people. In a striking distinction, Spanish accounts of the event emphasise the precious metals and stones sported by the Aztecs, whereas the Florentine Codex – compiled later from the recollections of indigenous informants – gives priority to the glorio…

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