HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-03-15T19:09:57.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 16 remarkable moments in the history of the Oscars
items: From Stranger Things to communist cars: why we can't resist nostalgia
items: Lonely hearts and holiday flings: a brief history of dating
items: Why Greenwich is the home of time
items: Think you know everything about the history of Thanksgiving? Here’s 21 facts that will prove you wrong
items: Toilets through time: early modern chamber pots
items: Myspace and MTV: how will future historians study the 21st century?
items: Sex and sensationalism: a history of the tabloids
items: "Violence and American politics have gone hand in hand right from the beginning": a history of political violence
items: Crime fiction history: everything you wanted to know

16 remarkable moments in the history of the Oscars
type: item
date: 2026-03-15T19:00:13.000Z
creator: Ellie Cawthorne
subject: 20th Century
subject: 21st Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: TV interest
description: When was the first Academy Awards? How many Oscars did Titanic win in 1998? Why did Will Smith slap Chris Rock? Here's everything you needed to know about the history of the most notable event in the film industry calendar...
encoded: The Academy Awards were first held in 1929, and each year the film industry awards gold-plated statuettes – commonly called Oscars – in a glittering and star-studded ceremony. Officially the Academy Award of Merit, everyone knows the golden knight holding a sword and standing on a reel of film as Oscar. Cedric Gibbons, art director at movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, gets the credit for designing the statuette but not for naming it. Read more | The best historical movies of all time There are three theories. Hollywood journalist Sidney Skolsky always maintained he thought it up as a less-grandiose antidote to the pretentiousness of the award ceremony. Meanwhile, actor Bette Davis claimed she once remarked the statuette’s backside resembled that of her husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. The most likely winner, however, is Margaret Herrick, a librarian at the Academy, who said the knight (not just his rear) looked like her uncle Oscar. But how much do you really know about the history of the awards themselves, and the dramatic moments that have played out on the biggest night of the Hollywood calendar? The history of the Oscars: 16 key moments 1929: The first ceremony takes place Founded by Louis B Mayer, head of MGM studios, in 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was intended as a non-profit organisation with the goal of advancing the film industry. The first Academy Award ceremony took place two years later at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, on 16 May 1929. Tickets for the private dinner cost $5 and the presentation ceremony hosted by Douglas Fairbanks (actor and first president of the Academy) lasted just 15 minutes. The film industry was undergoing a dramatic change at the time, with the revolutionary introduction of new sound technology. Although hugely popular ‘talkies’ such as The Jazz Singer (1927) had been released before the first Academy Awards, they were not considered, because it was seen as unfair to compare them to silent movies. Read more …

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From Stranger Things to communist cars: why we can't resist nostalgia
type: item
date: 2026-03-04T15:30:20.000Z
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Communism
subject: Psychology
description: In our politically unstable modern world, the allure of retreating into memories – sometimes mirages – of bygone eras seems to have grown. Six historians explore how this tendency impacts our historical understanding
encoded: “The nostalgia that Stranger Things evokes is complicated” The first thing to remind ourselves is that our view of the past is definitely shaped. The way that we understand history is translated, constructed, created for us in multiple ways – the majority of which have very little to do with the actuality of what happened. We imagine and dream history across culture, making versions of it that comfort us and accord with our world views. Film, television, games, adverts, heritage spaces, novels – they all enable us to inhabit other times, to form our sense of memory, to consume the past. Nostalgia is simply one of the ways that we access these feelings of pastness. It is incredibly powerful because of its appeal to emotion beyond rationality. It is a way of connecting with the historical that ignores order and authority – and historians underestimate it at their peril. Nostalgia has become a keynote for contemporary collective memory. Global populist politics are shot through with a dangerous nostalgia for a claimed glory that has been seemingly squandered. This is not new, but it is newly dominant. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/2WX7XXY-CMYK-12a5f8b-e1772530438298.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A poster for the TV show Stranger Things, showing four children on bikes on a long road with a yellow line down the middle. They are all looking towards a red, cloudy sky" title="The hit series Stranger Things is “a confection of an imagined 1980s”, says Jerome De Groot, enjoyed by an audience of whom many have “no memory of the eighties other than a cultural hangover of tropes and clichés” (Image by Alamy)" /> In the television series Mad Men (2007), Don Draper cynically uses the past to sell product, observing: “Nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent.” Memories of the past can be manipulated. The biggest English-language show worldwide in 2025 was Stranger Things, a confection of an imagined 1980s – Spielberg, Nike, Kate Bu…

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Lonely hearts and holiday flings: a brief history of dating
type: item
date: 2026-02-13T15:39:00.000Z
creator: Nichi Hodgson
subject: 20th Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Valentine's Day
description: From calling cards and corsets to 'the pill' and the sexual revolution, we have always found inventive ways to find and further love. Nichi Hodgson, author of The Curious History of Dating: From Jane Austen to Tinder, takes us on a whistle-stop tour of courtship through history
encoded: When I first began writing about the history of dating, what struck me most was how similar the problems of today are to the 1930s, the 1840s, and even the 1780s. From worrying about a partner’s financial standing, or whether someone was going to stick around long enough for you to have children with them, to persuading your parents they are indeed a good fit, the means by which we go about finding love may have changed, but not the hopes, dreams and anxieties we’ve had about discovering it. In the Georgian era, for example, the advice was clear: looks matter but value them at the peril of your long-term happiness: “She, who, intoxicated with flattery, protracts the triumphs of her beauty in youth, may live to lament the barren spoils of it in age.” Indeed, throughout history, grooming and dressing as well as you possibly can has always been a better strategy than ruminating on what you don’t have. Victorian women wore dresses cut just above the nipples, with pearl necklaces draped lasciviously in their décolletage, while some Edwardian men favoured wearing corsets and delighted in the sensation of tight lacing. When the mini skirt was invented in the early 1960s, some men even tried it out, including 16-year-old trainee brick layer Tony Liggard whom the Daily Mail reported was convinced it would catch on among men. It didn’t – but long hair, floral patterns, make-up and jewellery all eventually did. So much for the myth that male grooming is a recent phenomenon! <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/02/2GettyImages-559574483-24ee5fb-e1770990862524.jpg" width="1499" height="1000" alt="A Victorian advertisement showing black and white sketches of men wearing corsets. Across the top is an address and an advert for Madame Dowding" title="Some Victorian and Edwardian men experimented with wearing corsets, as this 1899 advertisement reveals (Image by Getty Images)" /> Once you were suitably styled, you needed to get a date’s attention.…

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Why Greenwich is the home of time
type: item
date: 2026-02-04T08:00:21.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: General History
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Dr Emily Akkermans charts the story of how a small hilltop observatory became the centre of global timekeeping
encoded: Why is a small observatory in south-east London so important to the story of how we tell the time? Speaking to Elinor Evans, Emily Akkermans, Curator of Time at the Royal Museums Greenwich, shares the history behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). From 17th-century efforts to solve the 'longitude problem' at sea, to the red 'time ball' that still drops at 1pm each day, this episode uncovers how Britain’s maritime ambitions, royal patronage and scientific ingenuity turned Greenwich into the beating heart of global timekeeping.

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Think you know everything about the history of Thanksgiving? Here’s 21 facts that will prove you wrong
type: item
date: 2025-11-26T15:03:54.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: Thanksgiving
description: From tales of pumpkin-pie panics to the story of the president who turned his dinner into a pet, Jonny Wilkes uncovers the surprising history behind Thanksgiving: America’s turkey-tastic holiday
encoded: There are only two accounts of the first Thanksgiving The story of the first Thanksgiving has been highly mythologised in American history. In 1621, the so-called Pilgrims who travelled on the Mayflower and formed the settlement of Plymouth, in Massachusetts, came together with the local indigenous peoples, the Wampanoag, for a feast to celebrate a good harvest and the growing friendship of settler and Native American in the New World. That is the version long told in schools. In truth, the Pilgrims threw themselves a harvest festival and around 90 of the Wampanoag showed up. Without their help, especially a man named Squanto, the European settlers would have likely perished in their brutal first winter. The only sources for the three-day feast are sparse mentions in writings by two of the Pilgrims, Edward Winslow and William Bradford. Neither actually used the word ‘thanksgiving’, however, and since they gave few details of what happened, the mythologising took over. They may not have eaten turkey at the first Thanksgiving For many Americans, no modern Thanksgiving meal is complete without a turkey as the centrepiece of the table. It’s unclear, however, whether this tradition began in 1621. The Pilgrims cooked up a selection of fowl – which may have included turkey, but could just as easily been duck and goose – while the Wampanoag killed a number of deer, meaning venison was on the menu. They might have had seafood, too, including eels, clams, mussels and lobster. Yes, William Bradford mentioned a “great store of wild Turkies” in the region, but the bird did not become a staple of the Thanksgiving meal until the 19th century. The first Thanksgiving may have happened earlier than 1621 While the 1621 feast became the foundation for the Thanksgiving holiday, perhaps Americans should celebrate a different year. Other acts of thanksgiving, based in the tradition of Christian harvest festivals, took place earlier in the short-lived Popham Colony in Maine and Jamestown i…

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Toilets through time: early modern chamber pots
type: item
date: 2025-11-19T10:55:20.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Toilets through time podcast series
description: Professor Mark Stoyle leads David Musgrove into the early modern water closet
encoded: David Musgrove and Mark Stoyle tackle the toilets of the early modern period – from Samuel Pepys' graphic garderobe confessions to chamber pots and literary loo paper Samuel Pepys describes in great detail the toilet experiences of 17th-century Londoners. But how far did that reflect the bathroom habits of the whole population? For this final episode of Toilets through Time, Professor Mark Stoyle leads David Musgrove into the early modern water closet.

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Myspace and MTV: how will future historians study the 21st century?
type: item
date: 2025-10-29T09:12:09.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Jane Winters and John Wills discuss how social media and digital records chart the story of recent decades – and how they pose a challenge for historians
encoded: From social-media accounts to TV shows and video games, recent decades offer an enormous wealth of material for future historians to explore. But what are the challenges presented by this vast amount of data? And how will historical researchers a hundred years from now make sense of 2025? Matt Elton spoke to historians Jane Winters and John Wills to answer these questions – and find out how the ephemeral digital archives of our current era might differ from the historical sources of previous generations.

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Sex and sensationalism: a history of the tabloids
type: item
date: 2025-10-24T14:15:58.000Z
creator: Jon Bauckham
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Terry Kirby investigates the 500-year history of tabloid journalism – from the first gossip rags to the muckraking exploits of the 20th-century popular press
encoded: Tabloid journalists often get a bad press. From publishing libellous headlines to hacking celebrities’ phones, recent years have not exactly done much to enhance Fleet Street’s reputation. But where did tabloid journalism originally come from? And have media barons always had such a profound influence on current affairs? Journalism lecturer Terry Kirby talks to Jon Bauckham about the evolution of the popular press, covering everything from Georgian gossip sheets to the rise of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Terry Kirby is the author of The Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism (Reaktion Books, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon

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"Violence and American politics have gone hand in hand right from the beginning": a history of political violence
type: item
date: 2025-09-18T10:17:20.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: Trends-News
description: Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July 2024, Matt Elton spoke to historian Adam IP Smith about the history of violent attacks on US leaders. In this interview, first published in the October 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine, Smith discussed the political and social repercussions of such assaults across the decades
encoded: Matt Elton: Assassinations, and attempted assassinations, have occurred around the world throughout history. But is there a particularly American aspect to this story of political violence? Adam IP Smith: I think there is. Political violence is hardly unique to the US, sadly, so we must be careful about ascribing American exceptionalism to what we saw at Donald Trump’s rally [in Pennsylvania on 13 July 2024]. There is nevertheless an American political tradition into which this specific kind of gun violence – the attempted assassination of leading political figures, especially presidents and presidential candidates – fits. On the podcast | Adam IP Smith on assassinations that shaped US history As a historian, do you think it’s a stretch to suggest that the violence that shaped the founding of the modern nation may have paved the way for later political violence in the US? Certainly the political polarisation and the potential for political violence we’re seeing today form part of a recurrent pattern in US history. There are several reasons, but maybe the core one is that there’s long been a fundamental disagreement within the US about who constitutes the legitimate American nation. That has led to a fear, genuinely held by significant numbers of people involved in the political process, that the stakes are so high because if their political enemies win then everything will be lost – that their freedom, the republic, even their own place in society will be jeopardised. That’s partly because, from the beginning, the president of the United States has held many of the powers held by monarchs – in some respects, even greater powers. George Washington had more influence over the government of the US than George III had over the government in London, for instance. So the monarchical style of the US head of state puts a huge amount of pressure on that role, which needs to feel like the embodiment of America at that particular moment in time. The first US president targeted…

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Crime fiction history: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2025-08-31T07:00:43.000Z
creator: Isabel King
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: From Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes, Martin Edwards answers key questions on the history of the crime fiction genre
encoded: From Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes, crime fiction has long been a popular genre. But what was the first crime novel? How has crime writing affected real-life cases? And what was the 'Detection Club'? In this 'everything you wanted to know' episode, Isabel King is joined by crime fiction author and researcher Martin Edwards to discuss the history of the influential genre.

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