HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-05-01T07:31:15.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Can you solve our history crossword of the week?
items: History crossword: 24 April
items: Quiz of the week: who was the first British royal to visit the United States?
items: From ancient China to modern America: an astonishing history of censorship
items: A history of the world in 7 faces: from Tutankhamun to the Virgin Mary
items: How many US presidents have been assassinated?
items: History's Greatest Dishes: Victoria Sponge
items: Pageantry and politics: a history of British royal visits to the US
items: History crossword: 17 April
items: Royal women, with Professor Kate Williams

Can you solve our history crossword of the week?
type: item
date: 2026-05-01T07:31:15.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Period
encoded: View Riddle on the source website

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History crossword: 24 April
type: item
date: 2026-05-01T07:30:46.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
encoded: View Riddle on the source website

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Quiz of the week: who was the first British royal to visit the United States?
type: item
date: 2026-04-30T08:30:16.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Period
subject: Quiz
subject: Evergreen
description: How much have you been paying attention to this week's content on HistoryExtra? Test your knowledge with our quiz…
encoded: Test your knowledge with our general knowledge weekly history quiz... View Riddle on the source website More from us Exclusive quizzes for HistoryExtra members from our archives The ultimate Windors quiz The ultimate Second World War quiz How well do you know the history behind everyday inventions? Who's missing from these images? Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers How did you score? Share your result on social media to see how your knowledge compares with other HistoryExtra readers!

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From ancient China to modern America: an astonishing history of censorship
type: item
date: 2026-04-29T16:00:22.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Civil rights
subject: Communism
subject: Debate
subject: Trends-News
subject: US presidents
description: A mistrust of ‘experts’ and ‘intellectuals’ has recently crystallised into US government interventions targeting academic institutions. Emily Knox and Joan Scott share their thoughts with Danny Bird about the troubling history of anti-intellectualism
encoded: Danny Bird: Anti-intellectualism can feel like quite a contemporary concern – but when did this phenomenon emerge? Joan Scott: It goes back a long way. In the case of the United States, a key reference is Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter, published in 1963 in the wake of the McCarthy anti-communist hearings. I return to it often. Hofstadter traces anti-intellectualism almost to the nation’s beginnings, particularly in debates over education. Attempts to centralise schooling repeatedly provoked hostile reactions from local communities determined to control what their children were taught. Hofstadter locates this strain chiefly among non-elite, less formally educated groups who are suspicious of expertise and claims to superior competence, and wary of those in elite positions. The US therefore has a long history of anti-intellectualism, though it also appears in different forms elsewhere. France may be something of an exception – as a historian, I have seen philosophical disputes conducted at every level of French society in a way quite unlike anything in the US. In any case, though the tradition of anti-intellectualism is long-standing, we may now be experiencing it at its most acute. Emily Knox: When I think about anti-intellectualism, I see a rift. There is a fear that, if someone becomes more educated or begins to listen to experts, a break opens within their community. This is especially visible with first-generation university students, who can feel pulled away from their families and local ties. In many cases, anti-intellectualism grows from that sense of separation. It is rooted less in abstract questions of trust than in fear of loss, distance and change. Viewing it in those terms helps us to understand it more clearly. Has it commonly been during times of upheaval – such as religious conflicts, revolutions and the rise of authoritarian and populist regimes – when academic freedom has been attacked? EK: Yes. One of the earliest and …

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A history of the world in 7 faces: from Tutankhamun to the Virgin Mary
type: item
date: 2026-04-27T16:00:55.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Burial
subject: Death
subject: Historical people
subject: Slavery
description: From a Stone Age Venus and an Egyptian death mask to an unflinchingly challenging 21st-century sculpture, Fay Bound-Alberti introduces seven depictions of the face that track humanity’s ever-evolving relationship with creativity, hierarchy and self-image
encoded: 1. The art of darkness This enigmatic head is a 25,000-year-old testament to the innate urge to capture the essence of a person in art In 1894, an archaeologist called Édouard Piette walked into a cave in the village of Brassempouy in south-west France and came face-to-face with humanity’s distant past. Lying in the darkness was a fragment of mammoth-ivory carved to depict a head. That head was tiny – so small that it could nestle in the palm of Piette’s hand – and yet it had survived for 25,000 years, carved by an artist deep in the Palaeolithic period. Piette couldn’t have been aware of it at the time, but he had just discovered one of the earliest known representations of a human face in art. That representation is both awe-inspiring – and deeply enigmatic. It would soon be known as ‘The Venus of Brassempouy’ – there were other Venuses in the same cave, with those rounded hips and breasts associated with fertility symbols – and yet we can’t even be sure if it depicts a woman. Despite these uncertainties, the fact that this rare and portable object exists at all tells us that it was important for the artist to capture something of the essence of a person – and with a level of detail that is unusual for a Venus figurine. That depth of detail is most evident in the intricate, chequerboard-patterned hair – possibly a wig or hood – from which the object derives its nickname, ‘La Dame à La Capuche’ (Lady with the Hood). The face, by comparison, is a blank canvas. It has a prominent forehead, nose and brow, but it lacks a mouth. Was this artistic decision influenced by convention? Religion? Personal style? Time? We do not know. What we do know is that the Venus of Brassempouy stands as a symbol of how representations of the face have evolved over 25,000 years. Today, we take it for granted that our face represents us – a phenomenon I have termed ‘facehood’. It is marked on our passports and unlocks our mobiles; it is captured in photographs countless times over our life…

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How many US presidents have been assassinated?
type: item
date: 2026-04-27T15:29:02.000Z
creator: Rachel Dinning
subject: General History
subject: Period
subject: Evergreen
subject: Trends-News
description: The assassinations of US presidents had lasting impacts on American history, shaping political policies, security measures and public trust in government
encoded: It’s not every day that a sitting president gets assassinated, but when it happens, the implications are felt across the entire country, often for decades. In the United States, four sitting presidents have been killed in office, while others have survived attempts on their lives. Who were the US presidents assassinated while serving, how did those attacks unfold, and which presidents lived through assassination attempts? How many US presidents have been assassinated? Four sitting US presidents have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln in 1865 James A Garfield in 1881 William McKinley in 1901 John F Kennedy in 1963 Each of these assassinations sent shockwaves through the nation, leading to significant political and security changes. But how did they happen? The assassination of Abraham Lincoln On 14 April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, fresh from steering the country through the Civil War, was enjoying a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. During the performance, John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathiser and well-known actor, snuck into Lincoln’s private box and shot the president in the back of the head at point-blank range. Booth had initially planned only to kidnap Lincoln, but after the president had floated an idea to offer African-Americans the vote, he had decided upon a different, more deadly direction. What followed was a wild 12-day manhunt, ending when Booth was cornered and killed by Union soldiers in a barn in Virginia. But why did the noted actor want to kill Lincoln? In November 1860, Lincoln had won the presidential election with the anti-slavery Republican Party and became the 16th president of the United States. By the following year, 11 southern states had seceded to form the Confederate States of America, who wanted to preserve their slave-based economy. This kickstarted the American Civil War. Four years of bitter fighting effectively came to an end on 9 April 1865 when Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered his troops to Union Gen…

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History's Greatest Dishes: Victoria Sponge
type: item
date: 2026-04-27T09:17:01.000Z
creator: Dr Annie Gray
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: History's Greatest Dishes (podcast series)
description: Annie Gray delves into the darker side to a delicacy that's become a national icon
encoded: Light as air, this neat sandwich of cake, jam and cream is often seen as emblematic of British baking – but its story is richer and more complex than its simple ingredients might suggest. In this episode of History's Greatest Dishes, Emily Briffett and food historian Annie Gray explore how an unassuming cake became indelibly associated with Britain. They chart its rise amid the 19th-century boom in baking technology and its later association with afternoon tea and the Women's Institute – and discuss how its ingredients reveal a darker side to the food industry. History’s Greatest Dishes is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History’s Greatest Cities, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Battles, HistoryExtra Long Reads.

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Pageantry and politics: a history of British royal visits to the US
type: item
date: 2026-04-27T01:10:19.000Z
creator: Sam Edwards
subject: 20th Century
subject: 21st Century
subject: Cold War
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: British prime ministers
subject: British queens
subject: Historical people
subject: The royal family
subject: US presidents
description: As transatlantic tensions swirled about King Charles III’s visit to Washington DC in 2026, Sam Edwards reveals how past royal tours have steadied the ‘special relationship’ in times of crisis
encoded: The April 2026 royal visit to the United States came at a particularly challenging moment for the US-UK ‘special relationship’. In the preceding months, President Donald Trump had repeatedly singled out prime minister Keir Starmer for blunt criticism, even going so far as to declare that Starmer as “no Churchill”. Meanwhile, the royal family similarly found itself caught up in transatlantic controversy: the Epstein scandal. If all that wasn’t challenging enough, King Charles’s visit to America also came at a time when the US-UK relationship was drawing even more scrutiny than usual. 2026 is year is the 80th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, which popularised the phrase ‘special relationship’, and it’s also the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. The latter was of course the event that severed the connection between the American colonies and the British Crown and thereby put the transatlantic relationship onto a very different trajectory. In short, the visit came at a time of significant turbulence in the US-UK relationship. King Charles, however, might have been able to take some reassurance from the fact that several of his predecessors had similarly travelled to the United States during moments of challenge, change and upheaval... <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/2GettyImages-1320405043big-566d798-e1777245347971.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large group of men and women in formal 19th-century dress gather outside a red-brick tomb set within a leafy landscape, their attention focused on a central meeting of figures. Women wear layered gowns with bonnets, while men in dark suits and top hats stand in lines, with trees and a distant sky framing the scene." title="A painting by Thomas Pritchard Rossiter captures the Prince of Wales’s historic visit to George Washington’s tomb in 1860. The young prince, who later ruled as Edward VII, can be seen standing with President James B…

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History crossword: 17 April
type: item
date: 2026-04-24T07:31:15.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
encoded: View Riddle on the source website

Royal women, with Professor Kate Williams
type: item
date: 2026-04-21T07:39:55.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Period
description: In this six-part video series for the HistoryExtra Academy, Kate Williams uncovers the little-known stories behind some of history’s most famous queens
encoded: Join Professor Kate Williams for a six-part HistoryExtra series uncovering the little-known stories behind some of history’s most famous queens. You’ll meet Cleopatra, the brilliant strategist who fought Rome for Egypt’s survival – Marie Antoinette, the queen blamed for a revolution she couldn’t control – and Elizabeth II, whose image shaped modern royalty. Across millennia, we’ll explore how royal women navigated power, politics, and expectation and how their legacies were shaped long after their deaths.

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