January 2017

Articles from the January 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine

Aerial view of the outside of Treblinka extermination camp, Germany, 1943. (Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

Second World War

Laurence Rees on the perpetrators of the Holocaust: “What they told us was, at the time, they felt it was the right thing to do”

Painting of Masons building a pillar in a church

General Early Modern

Your guide to... the Freemasons

Painting of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, depicted on her knees in prayer wearing a head covering. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Margaret Beaufort: mother of the Tudors

Fidel Castro addresses delegates of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, September 1960. (Photo by Tommy Weber/AFP/Getty Images)

How should history remember Fidel Castro?

Deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, German officer Paul Schmidt and Adolf Hitler survey damage at Hitler's eastern front military headquarters, ‘the Wolf’s Lair’, hours after a failed bombing attempt by Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. (Photo by Heinrich Hoffmann/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Second World War

Should we be glad the plot to kill Hitler failed?

Giuseppe Garibaldi in Naples, Italy, 1861. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

God, gangs and Garibaldi

Mary Anning. (Photo by The Natural History Museum/Alamy Stock Photo)

My history hero: Mary Anning (1799–1847)

Portrait of William III of Orange, found in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The Library How glorious was the Glorious Revolution?

Vintage family photo album and documents. (Getty Images)

How to become a local historian

View of Algiers with mediterranean galleys, published in Johannes van Keulen's Dutch Atlas, 1709. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

When Britons were slaves in Africa

The Temple Church, London, a late 12th-century church built for and by the Knights Templar. (Photo by LatitudeStock - David Williams/Getty Images)

History explorer: The Knights Templar

Wrought iron lace adorns many old buildings and houses in the streets of New Orleans. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: New Orleans, Louisiana

Section of the Bayeux Tapestry depicting a woman and child fleeing from a burning house. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The Library The Anglo-Saxons’ last stand