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What are history's biggest misconceptions? 9 experts reveal what we get wrong about the past
Our team of historians, broadcasters and authors take aim at the most egregious fallacies about the past
Ancient Athenian democracy was democratic There’s plenty to criticise about that ancient approach We wouldn’t recognise the system practised in ancient Athens as democracy in the sense we understand it today. Women did not have the vote, and the entire society depended on a massive slave population to be able to function. Yet in other ways it was also more democratic than our democracies today. Every (male) citizen took an active role in governing the city, and every major decision was taken by a vote involving every citizen who attended. An even more egregious misconception is the idea there is an unbroken link between ancient and modern democracy. Athenian democracy lasted for only around 200 years; since then, through most of the rest of antiquity, the Middle Ages and more modern historical periods, democracy has not been practised. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1155876683wbebready-ecda02a-e1775040845111.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An illustration of an ancient Greek orator standing on a raised platform, wearing a robe and laurel wreath, gesturing toward a crowd of citizens and soldiers gathered below. Classical buildings and hills appear in the background" title="Demosthenes, a defender of Athenian democracy in the fourth century BC, pictured in a c1880s illustration (Image by Getty Images)" /> In more recent times, Athenian democracy has been held up as a system to avoid rather than imitate. During debates between the founding fathers about the Constitution of the United States in the 1780s, many argued that “even if every Athenian had been a Socrates [ie very intelligent], Athenian democracy would have been little more than mob rule”. It is only very recently that we have come (again) to admire Athenian democracy, and want to link our own system of government to that ancient ideal. Michael Scott, professor in classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick Most people in the past had much shorter lifespans Many people died very young – but many others lived long lives On paper, this seems to be true: today, the average global life expectancy is around 72, whereas for much of the medieval and early modern periods the figure hovered around 30–35. You might think, then, that modern medicine, public health initiatives and better nutrition have all combined to help us live longer than our ancestors. In fact, though there has been a significant improvement in living conditions, the idea that there has been a corresponding increase in lifespan over the centuries is incorrect. The overall life expectancy has risen simply because more of us are living to older ages. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1691539942wbebready-f6db793-e1775040973181.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A seated adult in dark clothing cradles a young child dressed in pale yellow, who leans against them as if unwell. A bowl and spoon sit on a nearby table, with a chair draped in green fabric to the right." title="A 17th-century Dutch painting depicts a mother with her sick child. Though infant mortality was high in pre-modern eras, many people who survived childhood lived long lives (Image by Getty Images)" /> It’s important to understand the difference between life expectancy and lifespan. The former is an average – so, for example, if two people are born on the same day and one lives to the age of 80 but the other gets ill and dies before their first birthday, their average life expectancy is 40. Although that is statistically correct, we should be wary of drawing conclusions about typical lifespans. Using such figures doesn’t tell us that all (or even most) people in the past lived shorter lives. For most of the medieval and early modern periods, infant mortality was high due to the prevalence of disease, the lack of vaccines and medical knowledge, poor hygiene and sanitation, and complications from childbirth. But if you made it through childhood, you had a fair chance of living for almost as long as the average person today. There are plenty of historical examples of people living well into their seventies, eighties and beyond. Elizabeth I was in her 70th year when she died, and the Roman author and scientist Pliny the Elder recorded one musician who enjoyed good health until his death at the age of 105. Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster Every war ends at a single moment The consequences of conflict can drag on for years The greatest historical misconception is that wars come to an end neatly, on a specific date, with the signing of an armistice or surrender agreement. No war in history has ever ended happily-ever-after with a sudden return to normality. The consequences of war – famine, displacement, lawlessness and political violence – often last longer than the conflict itself. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-514079642wbebready-6a2479b-e1775041054396.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="“A group of people gather with copies of The Washington Times, holding up front pages with bold headlines such as ‘GERMANY SURRENDERS’ and ‘WAR IS OVER,’ reacting to news of the First World War’s end" title="Jubilant Americans celebrate German defeat in 1918. As Keith Lowe points out, though, the end of a world war has never resulted in a world fully at peace (Image by Getty Images)" /> The First World War is a perfect example. In our popular imagination, especially in the west, it came to an abrupt end on 11 November 1918. But the guns did not fall silent for long. Popular revolutions soon broke out in Germany, Austria, Hungary and many other places. Turkey was consumed by ethnic and religious violence, and vast battles took place between Poland, Ukraine and the new Soviet Union. Such events created an atmosphere of chaos that lasted well into the 1920s. The same thing happened after the Second World War. Ceasefires in 1945 did not bring immediate peace. Instead, armed groups rushed to fill the power vacuum left by the defeat of Germany and Japan. Political violence became the norm, and full-blown civil wars erupted in Greece, Poland, China and Indonesia, among other places. That period of chaos lasted at least until the end of the 1940s. War is sometimes unavoidable. But if we had a better historical understanding of the long-term consequences, perhaps we would prepare a little better for the period of instability that always comes afterwards. And maybe we would be less eager to embark on war in the first place. Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (Viking, 2017) Read more | Is the Eastern Front the forgotten theatre of World War One? History is written by the victors Voices of the defeated often resonate the loudest “History will be kind to me,” said Winston Churchill, “for I intend to write it.” Or such, at least, is the popular paraphrase of a line that Churchill trotted out on numerous occasions, always in jest. In reality, as he must have appreciated, no one gets to dictate how they are viewed by posterity. Nevertheless, the notion that ‘history is written by the victors’ is a persistent one. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1175727472wbebready-4a19229-e1775041240806.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white engraving showing a hooded, monk‑like figure offering a bowl and cross to an injured man supported by another. A fourth man in a helmet and holding a spear watches beside a forest stream and small waterfall" title="Welsh leader Llywelyn ap Gruffudd dies, 1282 (Image by Getty Images)" /> Consider a few counter-examples from the broad sweep of British history. Our only narrative source for Britain at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions is Gildas, a British monk lamenting the arrival of the invaders. Similarly, when the Vikings were ravaging Europe in the ninth century, the tale of their bloody progress was recorded by their monastic victims. Even the Normans, who produced an abundance of propaganda to justify their conquest of England in 1066, did not get to control the narrative. One of the most insightful portraits of William the Conqueror is the obituary of him penned by an English monk. The king, we are told, “was stern beyond measure to those who opposed his will… In his time people suffered grievous oppression and manifold injuries.” When Edward I conquered Wales in the late 13th century, no one (insofar as we know) celebrated his victory in verse, but Welsh poets did lament the passing of his vanquished opponent, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. The voices of the defeated are often the ones that resonate the loudest across the centuries. Marc Morris, medieval historian, writer and broadcaster Vikings drank from their enemies’ skulls Those horned helmets are hooey, too Lurid myths swirl around the Vikings: that they wore horned helmets, drank from the skulls of vanquished foes, and tortured and dispatched enemies by splaying their ribs in the gruesome ‘blood eagle’. It’s all nonsense. We can blame the 19th century for the horned helmets. When translations of the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas were published, that headwear started to sneak into the illustrations. Wagner didn’t help. In 1876, for the first performances of his Ring cycle, costume designer Carl Doepler decided that horned helmets would be just the thing. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-542363271wbebready-344c1a7-e1775041336198.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph of three people dressed in Viking‑style outfits, wearing horned helmets and fur garments, each holding a spear and a decorated round shield" title="Warriors don horned helmets in a Wagner opera (Image by Getty Images)" /> The idea of drinking from the skulls of enemies comes from a misreading of an Old Norse verse. That’s easily done, because the Norse wrote fiendishly complicated poetry that was deliberately difficult to unpick. One ode, Krákumál (‘The Lay of Kraka’), features a line about heroes drinking from the “curved branches of skulls”. It’s actually a poetic reference to animal horns, but 17th-century antiquarian Ole Worm translated it as heroes quaffing “from the skulls of those they had killed”. The ‘blood eagle’ is trickier to unpick, but again Old Norse poetry might be the source. The sons of Ragnar Lodbrok (‘Hairy-Breeches’), it was written, murdered the king of Northumbria by cutting his ribs from his spine and drawing out his lungs so that they looked like gory wings. It has been argued that this is a misunderstanding rooted in knottily obscure Old Norse verse, and that no such form of torture was ever perpetrated. The moral of the story? If in doubt, blame poets and costume designers. Eleanor Barraclough, historian, broadcaster and author of Embers of the Hands (Profile, 2024) Pompeii was ‘frozen in time’ Most citizens of the Roman town escaped a violent volcanic demise The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 didn’t happen in an instant. Nor was Pompeii buried in one swift sweep by lava. In fact, there was no lava at all. On the morning of the eruption, a thin curl of smoke rose from Vesuvius. By midday, the volcano had erupted, sending a vast column of smoke, ash and pumice 16 miles into the sky. Pumice rained onto the surrounding towns, and over the next few hours many of their inhabitants started to flee. Sometime after 7pm, the column – now too heavy to support itself – collapsed. This sent a scorching gush of pumice, gas and ash known as a pyroclastic flow hurtling towards Herculaneum. The city was buried beneath 20 metres of volcanic material. There were no survivors. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-918985082wbebready-dc62e0f-e1775041410267.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two plaster casts of human bodies lie on a bed of light gravel, one smaller figure close beside a larger one, set against a stone wall" title="Casts of a mother and child lie in the ruins of Pompeii – two of an estimated 2,000 victims there (Image by Getty Images)" /> It wasn’t until 6.30am the following day that the first pyroclastic surge reached Pompeii’s northern walls, sweeping about 200 metres into the city before losing momentum. Then, between 7.30 and 8am, the column above Vesuvius collapsed again – and Pompeii was engulfed. Any people remaining in the city were killed instantly, their bodies locked in a rigid ‘boxer pose’ as their muscles contracted rapidly in the fierce heat. Though many died beneath collapsing structures or from suffocation during the first parts of the eruption, most residents escaped before the final lethal surges; the death rate in Pompeii may have been as low as 10 per cent. The eruption didn’t happen in an instant – and the destruction it wreaked took place over the course of some 24 hours. Jess Venner, ancient historian, presenter and author of The Lost Voices of Pompeii Read more | Your ultimate guide to Pompeii, plus 8 fascinating facts about the ancient Roman city The North won the American Civil War White racial democracy was not displaced even after Confederate defeat Southern planters lost much when the American Civil War ended in 1865. The North’s victory in that conflict ensured that the Confederacy would never establish a global empire of cotton, and paved the way for emancipation, citizenship for freed people, and the franchise for black American men. Yet white racial democracy was not displaced, even if the slaveocracy was somewhat diminished. For the remainder of the 19th century, white people mounted deadly battles against black voters, business owners and politicians. They raged against the short-lived experiment in full democracy known as Reconstruction until they struck a deal with the federal government to end it. By 1877, the rest of the country had left black southerners and their few allies to defend democracy alone. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1329737646wbebready-3d4918b-e1775041532812.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A rectangular metal sign with white lettering on a dark background that reads ‘WAITING ROOM FOR WHITES ONLY BY ORDER OF POLICE DEPT" title="A Jim Crow-era sign enforcing racial segregation at a railway station in the US South (Image by Getty Images)" /> Even more strikingly, white southern elites won a narrative war that changed Americans’ sense of what happened. Historians call it the myth of the ‘Lost Cause’: an understanding shaped in schoolbooks, monuments and popular media that the antebellum South was a place of romance, not horror, and that there was something noble in the region’s last stand. Secessionists were understood as rebels, not traitors, and freed people as, in the words of future president Woodrow Wilson, “dusky children untimely put out of school”. “Whoever tells the best story wins,” it’s been said. The white South told such a compelling story that they secured Jim Crow segregation by 1900, bringing themselves back into the union on their own terms – and at the expense of black Americans. Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of history at Duke University The Victorians were po-faced prudes The queen herself loved to laugh "We are not amused.” These words, supposedly uttered by Queen Victoria, have burdened the 19th century with an unfair reputation for prudishness and humourlessness. Many still characterise the Victorian era as a stiff and solemn time when fun and pleasure were suffocated under a cloud of self-discipline and respectability. This, quite frankly, is nonsense. Fun was a vital part of Victorian culture. Celebrity comedians packed music halls every night, the country’s most popular newspapers brimmed with jokes, and the saying “laugh and grow fat” – the belief that cheerfulness promoted health – was a familiar household phrase. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-3321199wbebready-60feebc-e1775041641325.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A person poses in a theatrical costume: a plaid jacket with large buttons and a wide collar, checkered trousers, a tall tilted hat, and exaggerated facial makeup, set against a plain background." title="Music-hall star Dan Leno poses in a ludicrously mismatched outfit c1890s, illustrating Bob Nicholson’s point that “fun was a vital part of Victorian culture” (Image by Getty Images)" /> Victoria herself was no exception. Her diaries are packed with things that made her laugh. At one dinner party, she found herself talking to an elderly admiral who bored her with a story about a damaged ship. Hoping to change the subject, she asked after his sister’s health. Mishearing her, the admiral replied: “She’ll be fine, ma’am, when we turn her over and scrape the barnacles off her bottom.” Victoria shook with uncontrollable laughter until tears ran down her face. It’s true that Victorian humour was less coarse than that of earlier generations. Jokes about sex, farts and other bodily functions fell out of favour – in respectable circles, at least – but puns became a national obsession, and the era’s comedians produced plenty of books, cartoons and one-liners that still have the power to amuse. It’s high time we stopped treating the Victorians as solemn bores, and started laughing with them instead of at them. Bob Nicholson, writer, broadcaster and historian at Edge Hill University Read more | Think the Victorians were prudes? Their filthiest jokes will shock you The Middle Ages were dismal The Renaissance starts here I am continually astonished by how often I hear the medieval period in Europe called the ‘dark ages’. One thousand years of history cannot be dismissed so quickly. This was a period of seminal political developments – of genuine statecraft. It was a period of architectural and visual glories. It was a period of outstandingly rich intellectual achievement. It encompassed the Carolingian Renaissance in the eighth and ninth centuries; the so-called 12th-century Renaissance, another period of great cultural revival and vibrancy; and the late 14th and 15th-century Renaissance. (Indeed, we can blame those latter Renaissance thinkers for the denigration of the earlier Middle Ages: they had a vested interest in making out their immediate predecessors to have been benighted and stupidly dogmatic.) <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-526750990webready-9c11477-e1775041787316.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large circular stained‑glass rose window composed of vivid blue, red, and yellow panels depicting religious figures, framed by Gothic stone tracery and pointed arches." title="he c1220 Dean’s Eye rose window of Lincoln Cathedral, a wonder of the Middle Ages (Image by Getty Images)" /> Modern intellectual approaches were developed in the 12th century, pioneered by the scholar Peter Abelard in his dialectical text Sic et non (‘Yes and no’). Abelard also wrote a text called the Ethics, which set the tone for many centuries of ethical thinking; he foregrounded the idea of intention, too, and promoted the dictum ‘Know thyself’. On a more everyday note, the Middle Ages were also not as filthy as often assumed. By the later part of the period, urban authorities in particular were deeply concerned about hygiene, and regulated extensively. The metaphor “standing on the shoulders of giants” is often attributed to Newton, but he was merely quoting a 12th-century philosopher, Bernard of Chartres: “We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.” We should, like Bernard, acknowledge our intellectual debts to our medieval predecessors. Hannah Skoda, associate professor of medieval history at the University of Oxford This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
"We shall never surrender": 14 quotes that have defined the past century
Words have the power to alter the course of history. They can harden the resolve of an entire nation or people, encapsulate the ideals of a movement, and evoke joy – or provoke anger – long after they have been said. Here, Dr Seán Lang explores 14 of the most influential quotes of the past 100 years
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/RooseveltGettyImages-464783507-622899f-e1773405930967.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Franklin D. Roosevelt sits at a desk in an official setting, with papers, a microphone, glasses, and an ashtray arranged in front of him, heavy curtains framing the background." title="President Franklin D Roosevelt prepares for his inaugural speech, 1933. The former New York governor had won the presidency based on his promised ‘New Deal’, which lasted until the Second World War (Image by Getty Images)" /> 1. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” Franklin D Roosevelt, 1933 The United States lay devastated by the Great Depression, an economic collapse without precedent that destroyed the country’s global image as a land of opportunity and reduced millions of Americans to poverty and destitution. The governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had run for and won the presidency on the promise of a massive recovery programme, dubbed the ‘New Deal’, but he knew he could do nothing unless the American people first regained their self-belief. In his inaugural address on 4 March 1933, Roosevelt reassured them that they had nothing to fear, except fear itself – “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” The New Deal lasted throughout the 1930s until World War II set the country back towards full employment. Through the programme of reforms, regulations and projects, Roosevelt understood the power of words. He explained policies simply and clearly to radio listeners in his ‘fireside chats’, reassuring Americans that they had what it would take to improve their own lives and that the government would help. Roosevelt was elected an unprecedented four times, but it was that first inaugural message that set the tone for his time in office and helped give back the US its self-belief. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/ChurchillGettyImages-2667802-081f3a8-e1773403673660.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A man in a suit and hat stands outside a brick building, holding a cane and raising his hand in a V‑for‑Victory gesture" title="Winston Churchill gives his famous ‘V for Victory’ hand signal outside 10 Downing Street. The prime minister made some of his most memorable speeches during the first few months of his premiership, when Britain came under threat of German invasion (Image by Getty Images)" /> 2. “We shall never surrender” Winston Churchill, 1940 By June 1940, it seemed that Hitler had won his war. He had conquered Poland; launched a devastating assault in Denmark and Norway; and attacked in the west, invading the Netherlands and Belgium, and storming through northern France to cut off the British army and much of the French. It was only a matter of time before France was forced to surrender and German troops entered triumphantly into Paris. To any impartial observer, it seemed obvious that Britain had no choice but to seek a peace settlement with Hitler. But Winston Churchill, Britain’s pugnacious and controversial new prime minister, decided to ignore those pressing him to do just that. In an electrifying speech to the House of Commons on 4 June 1940, later broadcast on the BBC, he declared that Britain would fight on and never surrender – that “we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be”. Churchill knew that Britain’s navy and air force would make a German invasion hazardous, though not impossible, and that the only chance of defeating Nazism was to keep going until the United States could join the war. His words defined the stubborn defiance and ‘Dunkirk spirit’, which saved not just Britain but the world from a Nazi victory. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Mao-ZedongGettyImages-515210286-5fc8355-e1773403801718.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Mao Zedong, wearing a military-style uniform and cap, stands on a balcony and claps while looking over a wide avenue filled with a dense crowd and banners." title="Mao Zedong, seen here in an undated photograph, first used the phrase ‘paper tiger’ during a 1946 interview. The term is now popularly used to describe threats that are less powerful than they might first appear (Image by Getty Images)" /> 3. “The atom bomb is a paper tiger” Mao Zedong, 1946 The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 redefined the world. Leaders had always been able to plunge their peoples into war, but now they could wipe out whole cities, even countries, with a single order. While the United States was the only one with nuclear capability at first, the Soviet Union was not far behind thanks to communist spies in the west passing nuclear secrets to Moscow. Read more | Reign of the red terror: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution In an interview with American journalist Anna Louise Strong in 1946, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, described the atom bomb as a “paper tiger”, something that looks more dangerous than it is. Mao meant that all governments depended on the support of the people, and they would never consent to using atomic weapons. The phrase was taken another way: no government would dare use such weapons for fear of provoking a response from the other side. This was the idea behind the doctrine of ‘mutually assured destruction’ during the Cold War, as the power and number of nuclear weapons intensified. Even then, the world came perilously close to disaster on more than one occasion. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Mandy-RiceGettyImages-1365867502-dd9056f-e1773403905292.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A group of people gathers outside a stone building while several British police officers in traditional helmets stand among them, appearing to manage or escort individuals through the crowd." title="Mandy Rice-Davies (centre left) leaves the Central Criminal Court after testifying at the 1963 trial of her friend Stephen Ward. Questions about the model’s alleged affair with a Tory peer prompted a now-legendary response (Image by Getty Images)" /> 4. “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” Mandy Rice-Davies, 1963 This ordinary retort marked an unlikely watershed in British social history. Marilyn (better known as Mandy) Rice-Davies was a model and dancer working in London’s Soho, where she met Christine Keeler and her friend and protector, Stephen Ward. A successful osteopath, Ward was well-known in high society, hosting parties and introducing girls like Keeler and Rice-Davies to his well-connected friends, including the Secretary of State for War John Profumo and the Conservative peer Lord Astor. A public scandal ensued when the truth of Ward’s parties was revealed, especially with reports that Keeler had slept both with Profumo and a Russian naval attaché, Eugene Ivanov, which made the affair a diplomatic furore. Rice-Davies was a witness at Ward’s trial. It was widely held at the time that people in high society were trustworthy and honourable, incapable of the lewd behaviour associated with ‘lower’ classes. When it was put to Rice-Davies that Lord Astor denied her claim of an affair, the assumption was that his word was worth more than hers. Her cheeky response – “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” – suggested that the aristocracy were no more honourable than anyone else. The remark caused a sensation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Cassius-ClayGettyImages-545316246-1db1a81-e1773404032921.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A boxer wearing a shiny robe with “CASSIUS CLAY” on the back stands in the ring with both gloved hands raised in triumph as spectators watch from the packed arena." title="Cassius Clay celebrates his win over Doug Jones at Madison Square Garden, March 1963. The boxer, who changed his name to Muhammad Ali the following year, frequently described himself as ‘the Greatest’ (Image by Getty Images)" /> 5. “I am the greatest” Cassius Clay, 1963 Muhammad Ali, who changed his name from Cassius Clay in 1964, was always much more than a boxer: he was a role model for young black people around the world and a major international celebrity, mixing his sporting triumphs with irrepressible charm and wit. Boxing had long been a way for poor Americans to better themselves. Clay, who came from the segregated South, won the light heavyweight gold medal at the age of 18 at the 1960 Rome Olympics before turning professional and starting an immense career that saw him become world heavyweight champ three times. As well as a pugilist, though, Clay was a charismatic self-promoting poet always showing his gifts for trash talking. In 1963, shortly before announcing his conversion to Islam and his new name, he issued a record of rhythmically spoken poetry entitled I Am the Greatest. Ali continued to describe himself proudly as ‘the Greatest’, but he put his reputation and career on the line, and even risked jail, by refusing to serve in the US Army in 1967 as the war in Vietnam raged. His case went to the Supreme Court and Ali became a symbol of growing American opposition to the war, and a figurehead of the civil rights movement. He was now a champion of the dispossessed as well as ‘the Greatest’ in the boxing ring. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Martin-Luther-KingGettyImages-517357504-1305bdb-e1773404333188.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Martin Luther King Jr. stands at a podium filled with microphones, delivering a speech to a large crowd. People in the background wear uniforms, hats, and formal clothing." title="Martin Luther King Jr delivers his iconic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech during the March on Washington, 1963. The rally is considered a watershed moment in American history (Image by Getty Images)" /> 6. “I have a dream” Dr Martin Luther King Jr, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr’s iconic speech was delivered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, an enormous statue of the US president who had ended slavery in the United States. By the 1960s, however, true emancipation was still far off as African Americans faced entrenched legal discrimination and police violence. King, who had made his name leading protests against racial segregation, was speaking to a huge civil rights rally calling for jobs and fair treatment for America’s black population, but his speech went much further than that. Read more | How did the US civil rights movement influence Britain? King’s style of oratory owed much to his background as a Baptist preacher and his imagery, of a dream in which black and white people lived in harmony and friendship – and where his children “will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character” – was in line with the visionary sermons that many of his listeners had heard in church. The power of his words went far beyond the 17 minutes that his speech took and the 250,000 people gathered on that day, 28 August 1963. They became not only a defining moment of the civil rights movement, but of US history. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Hannah-ArendtGettyImages-135314633-43360a4-e1773404990659.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A person in a dark buttoned shirt with a brooch and patterned trousers reclines against a plain wall, one hand resting beside them holding a cigarette, their gaze angled upward." title="Hannah Arendt poses for a portrait, 1949. The philosopher’s reflections on the atrocities of the Second World War – and the motives behind them – sparked fierce debate (Image by Getty Images)" /> 7. “The banality of evil” Hannah Arendt, 1963 In May 1960, Israel took the world by surprise when its secret service agents kidnapped and abducted a German living in Argentina who gave his name as Ricardo Klement. In fact, he was Adolf Eichmann, one of the key figures in the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’, the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe. He was put on a plane to Israel and in 1961 he faced a criminal trial in Jerusalem. Hannah Arendt, a Jewish German-American writer and academic, asked the New Yorker if she could cover the trial for them. They agreed. In Arendt’s eyes, the bespectacled Eichmann, wearing a cheap suit instead of his Nazi uniform, seemed like any other middle-ranking office clerk; he could just as easily have been working for an insurance company or a bank. She coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to highlight the way evil can flourish not just by good people standing by, but by ordinary people in ordinary jobs carrying out instructions without ever questioning their morality. Her analysis ran into a storm of controversy. Jews were unhappy at her criticisms of what she saw as a show trial by the State of Israel; more recently, Holocaust scholars have pointed out that the viciously antisemitic Eichmann was very far from being a small cog in the machine: he was a proactive and energetic enforcer of the Final Solution, most notably directing the mass murder of the Jewish population of Hungary. However, Arendt’s idea that evil does not need supervillains, but merely enough ordinary people doing their ordinary jobs remains a powerful insight. She gave us the words to describe it. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/BeatlesGettyImages-84999643-9c296eb-e1773405091446.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Four men pose at a busy press event as photographers gather around them. Behind them are large globe‑shaped balloons and clusters of bright red, yellow, and blue balloons. One man holds a sign that reads “LOVE.”" title="The Beatles take part in a press call to promote the Our World television broadcast, in which they performed ‘All You Need is Love’ for the first time. The song’s simple refrain was designed to have international appeal (Image by Getty Images)" /> 8. “All you need is love” The Beatles, 1967 The Beatles were at the height of their fame and influence by the 1967 ‘summer of love’. Pop music had developed into a young people’s lifestyle and outlook that their parents, of the wartime generation, found utterly bewildering. The Beatles did not just produce hit records: they put forward a new philosophy, which overturned the older generation’s assumptions about behaviour, dress and morality. When their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band appeared in May, it quickly took on cult status. A month later, the group unveiled a new song, ‘All You Need is Love’, as part of the first global live television link-up called Our World, which was watched by an audience of approximately 400 million. The song had been purposely written with simple repeated lyrics to appeal to the international viewers, and so summarised the new attractive, easy-to-grasp philosophy in clear terms. As the song itself says, “It’s easy”. Older heads might point out that life needs a lot more than love, but in 1967 few young people were listening. Pop music has been one of the defining cultural influences that mark the postwar world: it has overcome generational, social, political and cultural barriers with its infectious rhythms and simple messages. While ‘All You Need is Love’ may have always been an ideal, it has endured. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Neil-ArmstrongGettyImages-1512723-8b06da7-e1773405173996.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A photograph of a ridged footprint in a grey clay-like floor" title="A close-up photograph of Neil Armstrong’s famous boot print, 1969. The astronaut’s first words after stepping onto the Moon became instantly iconic – despite a slight stumble in delivery (Image by Getty Images)" /> 9. “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” Neil Armstrong, 1969 That, at any rate, is what Neil Armstrong meant to say when he stepped down from the lunar module onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969. Either he slipped on his words, or they were obscured by a bleep in the transmission, because the version heard back on Earth did not have that crucial “a”. It did not seem to matter. Armstrong was right: it was a giant leap, though at the time no one quite knew in what direction. Space exploration had excited people around the world since the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite in 1957 and putting a human being on the Moon had seemed the ultimate prize. Where was all this endeavour to go after that? Science fiction suggested a world of space voyages, but the reality was to be much closer to home. Space technology moved into the world of satellites, first for telecommunications and later for everything from television to meteorology and traffic management. Inevitably, the military potential of space was quickly recognised. The Moon missions opened space up as a further area of operation for the nations of the Earth, so Armstrong was right, even if he got his words wrong. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/ThatcherGettyImages-1215188595-b93ab08-e1773405339874.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A woman with wavy, permed hair sits at a microphone, wearing a black and white patterned suit and white shirt with V neck collar. She has large pearl earrings and sits against a blue background" title="Margaret Thatcher addresses a press conference at Conservative Party HQ in 1987 – the year her interview with Woman’s Own magazine sparked controversy (Image by Getty Images)" /> 10. “There is no such thing as society” Margaret Thatcher, 1987 The Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister, ushered in a revolution. Her immediate aim was to resolve the economic problems into which the country had sunk in the 1970s, which she did by promoting a new philosophy based on free enterprise and the rolling-back of state control. In an interview for Woman’s Own magazine, Thatcher outlined her belief that, ultimately, it is not for the government to resolve people’s problems; individuals and families must look after themselves and their neighbours. In that sense, she said, “There is no such thing as society”. The phrase provoked a storm of controversy. Supporters applauded her emphasis on individuals, while opponents denounced what they saw as her uncaring attitude towards the Welfare State, which many regarded as the most significant change in 20th-century British society. The phrase encapsulated two completely different political philosophies: a belief in the power of the state as a force for good or as an enervating drain on the people’s energies. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/ReaganGettyImages-514906046-9ed3ad8-e1773405425624.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Ronald Reagan delivers a speech at a podium surrounded by microphones, seated officials behind him. A section of the Berlin Wall stands in the background with a German warning sign." title="Ronald Reagan makes his famous challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. The Berlin Wall was toppled two years later (Image by Getty Images)" /> 11. “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan, 1987 The postwar Soviet Union seemed a menacing, repressive world, in the grip of its secret police and ruled by a set of grim-faced old men in coats, so the emergence in 1985 of Mikhail Gorbachev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party came as a pleasant surprise. Not only did he seem more human and approachable, but he was clearly open to a closer and warmer relationship with the west. Even Mrs Thatcher commented that she liked Mr Gorbachev: he was a man she could do business with. Gorbachev embarked on a wholesale reordering of Soviet life and institutions, beginning with perestroika (restructuring) and notably glasnost (openness), encouraging people to speak openly and honestly about their lives, their past and even their government. Western countries sat up and took notice. Was it changing into a western-style democracy? Were the days of tanks rolling into eastern European capitals to crush liberation movements truly over? Read more | Did Ronald Reagan 'Make America Great Again'? US president Ronald Reagan decided to test him. In 1987, the president gave a speech at the Berlin Wall, the most potent symbol of the Soviet Union’s hostile rejection of the west. He welcomed the changes Gorbachev was making, but called on him to take the most far-reaching step of all: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” No one really believed he would, but it was thought that it might force Gorbachev onto the defensive. What no one predicted was that only two years later a mass movement of people, taking their cue from Gorbachev’s glasnost policy and calling openly for freedom of speech and movement, would force communist governments from power. When in May 1989 a journalist asked Gorbachev if the wall might come down, he replied, smilingly, “Why not?” By the end of the year, it had. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Hillary-ClintonGettyImages-526599660-40d8ade-e1773405542290.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Hilary Clinton, with shoulder length coiffed blonde hair, wearing a dark top and a pink, white and gold neck scarf. She stands in front of a microphone, and is turned towards the left, looking at someone out of frame" title="First Lady Hillary Clinton addresses a news conference in 1995. Her declaration that “women’s rights are human rights” helped bring the cause of gender equality into the global spotlight (Image by Getty Images)" /> 12. “Women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights” Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1995 The feminist movement had used a shorter version of this phrase since the 1980s, but it entered the mainstream when Hillary Clinton, wife of American president Bill Clinton, spoke at a United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. The transformation of the position of women in society was one of the most striking changes to take place in the 20th century. In Britain and the US, the century had begun with the celebrated campaign for women to have the right to vote, and by the end feminism had developed as a movement and philosophy that sought to transform human society along the lines of equality. Clinton was an apt figure to give voice to the aim. She was a lawyer who, in 1974, had been part of the Watergate investigation team that brought down President Richard Nixon. But her husband’s own presidency meant that she had to perform what was essentially a ceremonial role. She could support Bill in his duties, but could she hold office herself? As long as women’s rights continued to be regarded as a category on their own, it seemed that women would never be accepted as equals – hence her impassioned iteration that women’s rights are not just rights for women: they have always been basic human rights. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/harry-potter-and-the-sorcerers-stoneB8C7su-215cbe1-e1773405675845.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A young boy with dark hair and round glasses stands in a snowy street, dressed in a black robe with a yellow and maroon badge on his chest and a yellow and maroon striped scarf around his neck. On one arm he is holding a white owl" title="Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) with his trusty owl, Hedwig, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001). JK Rowling’s wizarding franchise rapidly became a global phenomenon – despite opposition from some Christian groups (Image by Warner Bros.)" /> 13. “You’re a wizard, Harry” Robbie Coltrane (as Rubeus Hagrid), 2001 When JK Rowling’s debut novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997, it was regarded as simply another imaginative children’s book from a first-time author. As word went round school playgrounds, however, the popularity of the series grew. Soon, crowds were gathering at bookshops to buy each new title as soon it appeared, along with Harry Potter audiobooks, videogames, tie-in toys and merchandise. Then in 2001, the first of a highly successful series of Harry Potter feature films made its way on to the big screen. What had begun as a series of children’s books had become a global phenomenon, with the words “You’re a wizard, Harry” (spoken by Hagrid actor Robbie Coltrane in the first film adaptation) becoming part of cinematic history. Hogwarts, Harry’s school of witchcraft and wizardry, is clearly a nostalgic throwback to the days of Britain’s famous private schools, with their uniforms, dormitories and special trains. But much of her message is more universal: a passionate defence of honesty and integrity against the dark forces of evil in the world, including those to be found in people who sit in authority. The formidable but kindly headmaster Albus Dumbledore is a sort of Old Testament prophet; the clash between Harry, whose parents gave their lives for him, and Voldemort (aka Tom Riddle), a boy who has given in to his dark side, is a modern stand-off between Jesus and Lucifer, the fallen angel. Did Harry Potter come to embody a substitute religion in the secular post-Christian western world? Certainly, fundamentalist Christians denounced the books and forbade their children from reading them. We can be sure that historians will be looking closely at the Harry Potter phenomenon for many years to come. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/For-EveryoneG5BD6F-9c59143-e1773405794351.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A packed stadium at night glows with blue and purple lighting. In the upper stands, illuminated seats spell out “THIS IS FOR EVERYONE,” while a central stage features a house‑shaped structure with projected visuals." title="Tim Berners-Lee’s cameo appearance at the 2012 Olympics ended with the words “This is for everyone” being beamed around the stadium. The words were intended to convey the democratic ideals behind the World Wide Web (Image by Alamy)" /> 14. “This is for everyone” Tim Berners-Lee, 2012 One of the most significant moments during the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics was also one of the quietest. After a stunning display that charted rural Britain’s transformation into an industrial powerhouse came a dance sequence depicting a 21st-century house party, complete with a full-size replica of a suburban home at its centre. Then, the house lifted up to reveal a middle-aged man sitting at his computer sending out a tweet: "This is for everyone.” The man was Tim Berners-Lee, and in 1989 he laid the foundations for what would become the World Wide Web. The web transformed the modern world just as totally as the Victorian industrialists had. Computers had always been huge, complex objects, the preserve of scientists and governments; until fairly recently, the most sophisticated item that people carried around with them was a pocket calculator. What Berners-Lee did was to create a way that would connect computers with each other, anywhere in the world, whether they were in people’s bedrooms or in the headquarters of international agencies. Suddenly, ordinary people had access to pretty much anything they might want to see. This was a democratic revolution as well as a technological one. As any government knows, access to information is power, and it was now in the hands of ordinary people everywhere. Tech companies grew from small gatherings of like-minded geeks into formidable multinational powers, able to face down governments. Of course, such power also brings responsibility, but Berners-Lee’s message at the Olympics was that the web should always be for everyone. A simple message – but a truly revolutionary one.
Meet the incredible woman who saved Portugal's Jews
With the Inquisition active throughout much of Europe, the first half of the 16th century was a perilous time for Jewish people. Andreé Aelion Brooks explores how the fabulously wealthy Doña Gracia worked tirelessly to protect her community
Still in her 20s, Gracia Mendes Nasi (Nacy), better known as Doña Gracia, was recently widowed and fabulously rich. She should have been able to live in comfort for the rest of her life. Her husband, Francisco Mendes, a spice dealer and banker, had divided his wealth in his will between Gracia and his brother, Diogo. Yet without her husband’s protection, even her money could not shield her from a looming crisis. Indeed, being in possession of such a fortune in patriarchal and Catholic Lisbon in the middle of the 1530s was inherently dangerous for someone of Doña Gracia’s background. She was a converso, a term for a person forced to convert from Judaism. When the papal nuncio, an ecclesiastical diplomat, paid a visit to her palatial home in the old Jewish quarter of Lisbon, he demanded yet another bribe to keep the Inquisition from beginning work in Portugal. The Inquisition, Gracia knew, rounded up conversos, who were then charged with being insincere Catholics and imprisoned. Whether this was true or not, their assets were confiscated. Furthermore, Doña Gracia certainly wasn’t sincere in her public faith. While she had married Francisco, who was also her maternal uncle, at Lisbon Cathedral, the ceremony had been preceded by a secret Jewish wedding. Compounding Doña Gracia’s problems, representatives of the Portuguese king, John III, had also visited her. They told her they wanted to take her young daughter, Ana, to the palace to live as an adopted child of the royal family. According to local laws, the king could thus gain the use of any portion of the Mendes fortune that belonged to Ana. It was clear Doña Gracia needed to make a new start elsewhere in Europe, but there was another problem: converso families were forbidden to leave Portugal. Demonstrating the skill that would make her an outstanding leader, she set two plans running simultaneously, an approach she would follow for the rest of her life. Read more | Your guide to the Spanish Inquisition Firstly, she sent a message to the king explaining that most of the fortune he sought was with her brother-in-law, Diogo, in Antwerp. To retrieve the fortune, she needed the king’s exemption to leave the country. And, of course, she could not leave her baby daughter behind. Nor her two nephews, who were registered to begin studies at university in Louvain. Nor her younger sister, Brianda, who was betrothed to Diogo. She also contacted Diogo to bring one of his spice ships, pick up the family from Lisbon and take them to Antwerp. The greedy king, hoping to maximise the amount of money he could seize, agreed to let her travel. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-173449744-8114cab-e1768985633175.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="An illustration of a man in a white and red apron, a tall white coned hat, and holding a stick in one hand. Behind him, there is a large building with many windows" title="A depiction of a man condemned to be burned on the orders of the Inquisition (Image by Getty Images)" /> But Doña Gracia had no intention of giving up her fortune so easily. Before departing for Antwerp, she had also set the second part of her plan in action. She had applied to the Vatican for a ‘Safe Conduct’, a super-passport valid throughout Christian Europe and which overrode any local laws preventing someone from travelling abroad. Throughout her life, Doña Gracia believed in doing what she could to maximise her chances of success. Her skills went beyond protecting her own family. Not only did she take the helm of her late husband’s business, an unusual enough development in itself in the late Renaissance era, but she assumed a leadership role within the converso community. With the threat of the Inquisition looming, Doña Gracia began to expand a nascent escape network that spirited members of the community out of danger and helped them travel to the Ottoman empire, which offered a haven for Europe’s Jewish community. In 1536, with the formal establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition, the situation for conversos in the country grew even more perilous. Read more | Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul: the history of a city of many names Speaking truth to power In 1553, Doña Gracia too would relocate to Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), but in the latter half of the 1530s her focus was on building a new life in Antwerp. Yet here, she encountered many of the same problems she had faced in Portugal. The rulers, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and his sister, Mary of Austria, who acted as governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, were quick to pick up where the Portuguese king had left off. The royal duo tried to pledge young Ana to a marriage that would be advantageous to them. Summoned to Mary’s palace to approve the match with Don Francisco D’Aragon – an illegitimate Spanish nobleman and descendant of the royal house of Aragon – Doña Gracia played for time, repeatedly implying she was sick. But she was so opposed to the union that she was reported as saying she would rather see her daughter drown – an audacious and insulting remark. Doña Gracia didn’t back down. She told Mary that she was furious about how Ana’s selected suitor had blamed the continuing persecution of conversos on Doña Gracia’s own obstinacy. Doña Gracia’s confrontational manner shocked Mary, a blue blood who had been queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia before she was widowed and became governor. Once again, Doña Gracia was forced to leave, fleeing to the Republic of Venice in 1544. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-463914533-e7876ff-e1768986146801.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A painting showing a large snaked line of people processing through a town square, surrounded by white building with blue and orange roofs. A crowd watches on as hundreds of men in black cloaks walk behind one another" title="An 18th century depiction of the procession of criminals sentenced by the Inquisition of Lisbon. As the persecution intensified, Doña Gracia helped many to flee to Constantinople (Image by Getty Images)" /> Compounding her difficulties, Doña Gracia did not even have the support of her own family. While in Antwerp, Diogo had died and named Doña Gracia as the guardian of his infant daughter rather than the child’s own mother – his wife and Doña Gracia’s sister, Brianda, who was talked of as untrustworthy. This so angered Brianda that, when both were living in Venice, she betrayed Doña Gracia as a secret Jew. In 1549, Doña Gracia again had to flee, this time to Ferrara, a tolerant duchy in northern Italy. Throughout, Doña Gracia continued to be a leader among her people, despite facing many setbacks. At one point, she helped lead a boycott of the Italian port of Ancona in retaliation for the burning of more than 20 conversos by the Italian Inquisition – an outrageous act even by the standards of the era. But the boycott was not a success in the long run because the Jewish merchants in the Ottoman empire who used the port could not agree on a combined strategy. Doña Gracia also failed in efforts to persuade the Venetians to give the conversos one of their lagoon islands as a place to settle. Read more | “Some say that the first Jews sailed here on King Solomon’s ships”: Kavita Puri on India's long Jewish history Life in the open But Doña Gracia’s sheer persistence also paid off. In 1553, she settled in Constantinople with her entourage. Here, she could live publicly as a Jew. Moreover, she persuaded Suleiman the Magnificent, sultan of the Ottoman empire, to grant her a long-term lease on Tiberias (in present-day Israel). She helped finance the rebuilding of a city that nestles on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, and it became a refuge for those conversos wishing to live in their own semi-autonomous area. Doña Gracia thus headed one of the earliest attempts to found a modern Jewish state in the Middle East. Her efforts here likely saved a significant portion of the ethnic Jewish world at a critical juncture in its history. She planned to settle in the region herself and built a mansion in Tiberias, but she died in Constantinople in 1569. In the years since, knowledge of Doña Gracia’s remarkable life has gradually faded, but that may be changing. Four years ago – during a period when the State Archives in Modena, northern Italy were closed because of the pandemic – archivist Alberto Palladini took advantage of the peace and quiet to clean out a box of old letters. It included two from Doña Gracia. These showed she spelled her last name as Nacy, not Nasi as the historical record currently suggests. It’s a small detail, but significant, if only because it hints at the possibility of further revelations should researchers go looking, which seems likely given the current interest in the lives of powerful women whose place in history has been under-appreciated. As for Doña Gracia herself, she certainly never sold herself short. As the seal for her correspondence, she used the Lion of Judah. This suggests she saw herself not just as a rich and successful businesswoman and philanthropist, but as someone descended from the House of David, a Jewish royal. Andrée Aelion Brooks is a journalist and lecturer. Her books include Russian Dance: A True Story of Intrigue and Passion in Stalinist Moscow (John Wiley & Sons, 2004) This article was first published in the January 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
Uncontacted peoples: why do nearly 200 groups choose to live outside 'civilisation'?
"These are the last humans who have stayed outside 'civilisation'", writes Michael Wood
A new report by Survival International, Uncontacted Peoples: At the Edge of Survival, is the latest accounting of the human story – and it is a historical document of unparalleled power. It reveals that at least 196 groups in the world are still uncontacted, most of them gravely threatened by logging, mining and drilling for oil. These are the last human beings who have stayed outside ‘civilisation’ since the violence of the West reached across the globe after 1492. The report cast my mind back 25 years to when we made a series of four films telling the story of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Cortés, Pizarro, Orellana, Cabeza de Vaca: these were men who experienced some of the most incredible adventures in human history. We tracked them on the ground, following in their footsteps over the Andes, up Inca trails to lost cities, and rafting down the Amazon. The third film was especially powerful in its implications for the here and now, as well as the events of the 16th century. It told the story of the expedition led out of Quito in 1541 by Gonzalo Pizarro (younger half-brother of Francisco, who spearheaded the conquest of the Inca empire). Its goal was to find the fabled El Dorado – ‘the Golden Man’ – a mythical city of gold believed to exist somewhere in the jungles beyond the Andes. The city was, in fact, unfindable – because it never existed. In trackless terrain, the expedition ran into disaster: soaked by incessant rains, running out of food, the men were reduced to eating their horses and cooking their boot leather. Francisco Orellana pushed onward in a home-made boat to scout what lay ahead, but such was the speed of the river that he couldn’t make his way back to the rest of the men. Read more | “Indigenous Americans who travelled across the Atlantic were horrified by inequalities in European society” After untold sufferings, the survivors of the main army made it back to Quito nearly a year and a half later. Meanwhile, after many adventures, Orellana sailed eastward, navigating the entire length of the Amazon. He was the first European to see the interior of Amazonia at a time when the middle reaches of the river supported huge settlements. Then, from the mouth of the great river, he sailed back north to Trinidad, completing one of the most astounding stories of human endurance. On our journey, a parallel narrative unfolded. Down the main course of the Amazon, everyone told us that the water levels were fast receding. Climate researchers had just announced that, at the rate of climate change then observed, the Amazon forest would start to transform into savannah in 2042 – coincidentally, the 500th anniversary of the Orellana expedition. If that happened, the climate cycle would be broken, the weight of history literally tipping the balance. Along the route, we heard stories of indigenous peoples in the depths of the forest. In the river town of Coca in Ecuador, a man told us how, as a youngster, he had lived with the Waorani tribe before he moved to the town and learned Spanish. He told of the struggles of those who chose to stay out of the modern world. One group steadfastly refused all contact; another had killed US missionaries who had not respected their wishes to be left alone. For them, he said, the price of receiving the white man’s god was degradation, alcoholism, and the loss of their own language, culture and identity. Read more | Did Aztec civilisation really ‘collapse’? The reality isn’t as simple as you might think The Survival International report features the story of one such people, the Mashco Piro in the Madre de Dios region of Peru – perhaps the single largest remaining uncontacted group. Not long after our journeys for the Conquistadors films, haunted by the beauty and tragedy of Peru, I went back with my family. We stayed in the Manu region with local people who lived off the forests and drew sustenance from the river. Beyond them was a checkpoint and a protected region extending 100 miles to the Madre de Dios river where outsiders may not go – and where the Survival report shows the Mashco Piro still live. So I read the report, with its haunting photos, feeling a sense of profound sadness. The holocaust of indigenous peoples is almost complete. The pattern is the same across the world over the past 500 years: the taking of the land, the extermination of native people and the plundering of the environment, fuelled by white supremacy, evangelical religion, western diseases and sheer greed. And now, five centuries on from the conquest of the Americas, across the entire planet only a few thousand of our ancient brothers and sisters hang on – people who simply do not wish to be contacted. What does that say about us? This column was first published in the Christmas 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
From Churchill to Vietnam: protests that changed the world
With the police about to be given broader powers to tackle disruptive events, the right to protest is in the spotlight. Timothy Garton Ash and Katrina Navickas join Danny Bird to discuss the history of popular demonstrations
Danny Bird: What is a protest? What distinguishes it from a riot or a revolution? Katrina Navickas: A protest is often defined by law, making it a fluid and changeable term. In England and Wales, its meaning has evolved over time. The earliest legal definition dates to the 1714 Riot Act, which distinguished a riot from other forms of protest. The modern idea of a demonstration emerged in the 19th century alongside the rise of democratic movements. Protest came to mean people gathering publicly to make collective claims – a reflection of the growing concept of ‘the people’ and their role in politics. However, what counts as a protest still depends on context: the country, the circumstances and the legal boundaries of what is permitted in public spaces. Timothy Garton Ash: Historically, revolution was associated with violence, but modern protest is defined by nonviolent action. Think of Gandhi in India, the Civil Rights movement in the US, or People Power in the Philippines [in 1986, resulting in the overthrow of the Marcos regime]. The revolutionary events of 1989 in eastern Europe were particularly notable because they brought together nonviolence and revolution for the first time. In essence, protest is about people power – collective, peaceful demonstration as a means of change. What makes a protest ultimately successful? Is it timing, tactics, leadership or something peculiar to a moment in history? TGA: In the book I co-edited with Adam Roberts, Civil Resistance and Power Politics (OUP, 2009), we examined 18 cases over a century, from Gandhi to the more recent ‘colour revolutions’ in former Soviet and Yugoslav republics. One point is clear: protest alone is never enough. It requires favourable internal and external conditions to succeed. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/WHA0173278webready-6200492-e1767782763339.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of a large crowd of people, standing together in white robes" title="Mahātmā Gandhi – shown on a peace march in 1947 during the partition of India – used nonviolent resistance to campaign for Indian independence and the end of British rule (Image by Topfoto)" /> For example, the 1989 revolutions succeeded where many Arab Spring protests did not because their surrounding circumstances were vastly different. Successful movements also have a clear strategy and they’re not merely expressions of anger or moral outrage. Effective protest involves understanding how to influence and divide those in power. Read more | The violent history of student protest KN: I often refer to the idea of critical mass, which is the point a movement gains enough public support to create real momentum. That usually depends on an ideological or belief shift, as well as favourable conditions. Successful protests often arise when the state is weakened – for instance, after wars or during major economic crises – creating opportunities to mobilise support. At such times, the forces of law and order may also be less capable of suppressing dissent. Even the strongest movement needs both structural openings and a sense among people that success is possible. Why does protest continue to make societies uneasy even in countries that pride themselves on free expression? KN: In Britain’s case, particularly in England and Wales, there was no statutory right to assembly or free speech until the Human Rights Act of 1998. Until then, the right to protest was effectively permissive rather than guaranteed. Throughout the 20th century, much of the legislation was designed to manage the far right and other regressive forces, which created tensions around freedom of speech and assembly. A key example came in 1936, with debates over whether Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists should be allowed to march. Questions arose over who could prevent such meetings, particularly those held in private venues, and whether police had the authority to intervene based on what was said. These tensions persist today: the balance between protecting free expression and preventing disorder remains delicate. TGA: Even in the freest societies, freedom is never unlimited. The freedoms of speech and assembly are constrained; if they were not, we would encounter philosopher Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance, where unlimited tolerance can ultimately destroy tolerance itself by empowering the enemies of democracy. In authoritarian regimes, the issue is simpler: governments fear protest because it allows people to speak and find their voice. The pivotal moment is breaking that barrier of fear. For instance, in autumn 1989 in Leipzig, two friends attended a demonstration against the East German regime. As they walked, more people joined at each street corner… 10, 12, 200, then 1,000. This ‘cascade effect’ demonstrates how critical mass can overcome fear, a prospect that terrifies authoritarian rulers: consider Romanian president Nicolae Ceaușescu’s facial expression when he realised that the crowd was openly booing him on 21 December 1989. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-2220408825webready-194c494-e1767783458422.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing a group of people leaning over a large number of lit candles on the floor" title="A candlelit mass protest in Leipzig in November 1989. The Monday Demonstrations, as these nonviolent gatherings were known, played a crucial role in ending the rule of communism in East Germany (Image by Getty Images)" /> How fair is it to say Britain’s history is one of evolution rather than revolution? KN: I often blame the Victorians for the myth of steady, moderate progress. The story of peaceful reform in Britain ignored harsh realities faced elsewhere. For a long time, for instance, Ireland was treated as a testing ground for extreme policing, public order measures and restrictions on constitutional rights. Even within Britain itself, progress was rarely smooth. TGA: Protest always involves risk – putting your body in situations where you might be attacked or, in extreme cases, killed. Sometimes, violence from the state backfires, galvanising wider support. The Tolpuddle Martyrs and, in Ireland, the Bloody Sunday massacres both illustrate this. How has protest been legislated and policed throughout history? KN: In Britain, general public order legislation arrived relatively late. Historically, most laws targeted specific political or social movements rather than applying broadly. In the 19th century, measures focused on the Chartists, trade unions or suffragettes. Even in the 20th century, legislation was often aimed at particular crises: the 1936 laws addressed fascist and communist unrest in the East End of London, while measures in 1986 targeted striking miners or football hooligans. Recent legislation, including that of 2022–23, is broader in scope, but it still arises in reaction to specific groups dominating public attention – for example environmental and black rights movements. This reactive approach represents a continuity throughout British history. TGA: Authoritarian governments can invent almost any justification to suppress protest. In democracies, the situation depends on whether constitutional protections exist. In the US, the First Amendment protects free speech; in Germany, experience with two dictatorships has led to clear constitutional guarantees of assembly. The UK has no written constitution. Over the past 30 years, piecemeal legislation, often poorly drafted and confusing, has slowly restricted protest. How do the spaces in which protest occurs help to shape it? KN: All protest is, at its core, a claim to public space. Demonstrations are associated with squares, streets and civic areas – town halls, county halls and other symbolic sites. Protesters assert their presence as ‘the public’ within these spaces, often choosing locations of national significance such as Trafalgar Square, built between the 1820s and 1840s and long regarded as Britain’s foremost public space. Throughout history, protesters have deliberately occupied symbolic sites to challenge authority or reshape public narratives. In London, battles over access to Hyde Park were especially significant. Although political gatherings were banned there because it was a royal park, the Reform League’s demonstrations of the 1860s, in which supporters tore down fences to enter, forced change. Speaker’s Corner emerged from this as a legal compromise established by the 1872 Parks Regulation Act, designating a specific area where people could speak freely without permission. Even modern tactics, such as ‘locking on’, have historical roots: suffragettes chained themselves to the gates of Downing Street to demand visibility and access. From the 18th century to the present day, controlling the geography of protest has remained central to how the state manages dissent. Read more | Female activism: 10 remarkable protests from around the world TGA: Protests are also a form of political theatre, and public squares are their grand stages. Consider Tiananmen Square, the focal point of the Chinese protests in 1989. Or Wenceslas Square in Prague during the Velvet Revolution that same year, where 300,000 people gathered under the direction of Václav Havel – an actual dramatist turned leader – shaking their keys in unison to create an unforgettable sound. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-2186457134webready-3fb663a-e1767783864589.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing very large crowds, holding up orange flags outside a large stone building with many windows and arches" title="Supporters of the opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko rally at the Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv in November 2004, after the election run-off was thought to be rigged against him (Image by Getty Images)" /> Similarly, Ukraine’s great protests have centred on the Maidan, Kyiv’s central square, during the Orange Revolution of 2004–05 and again in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014–15, when it became known as the Euromaidan. In each case, the physical setting of the central square of the capital has been vital to the drama and symbolism of protest. The suffragettes, who used violent tactics, are often lauded for having been on the ‘right side’ of history. What does this say about the way historical protests are perceived by posterity? KN: Groups such as the East London Federation of Suffragettes carried out more spectacular actions when moderate, peaceful wings were failing to make progress. This tactical shift in the early 1900s was also highly media-savvy. The suffragettes understood early mass media, staging stunts designed to capture newspaper front pages. Other actions targeted politicians or property: Winston Churchill, post boxes, shops. Because the suffragettes ultimately succeeded, their militancy is incorporated into the national narrative as justified. Movements using similar tactics that fail rarely achieve such recognition; the losers are often excluded from stories of national progress. History can move backwards as well as forwards, but there is a tendency to view the British story as progressive, where ‘winners’ are celebrated and ‘losers’ forgotten. This explains why suffragette militancy is accepted, while comparable violence – for example, during Irish campaigns for independence – is not seen as necessary. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-591947902webready-78185f2-e1767783995489.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of a woman shouting amongst a crowd. A man dressed in a dark suit and hat stands next to her" title="Sylvia Pankhurst addresses a meeting of suffragettes in July 1913. The group made smart use of the mass media (Image by Getty Images)" /> TGA: So-called ‘freedom fighters’ who take up arms for independence are often celebrated as heroes if they succeed. History tends to memorialise those who eventually win, often decades after the events. An example is Oxford’s Martyrs’ Memorial, commemorating Protestant bishops who paid the ultimate price during the reign of ‘Bloody’ Mary and were celebrated only once their cause prevailed. In Czechoslovakia, the brave student Jan Palach set himself on fire in 1969 to protest the Soviet invasion. Today, Jan Palach Square commemorates his sacrifice – a recognition that would not have been possible if the country had remained under Soviet control. There is a particular category of hero here: the martyr, someone who literally gives their life for a cause. Such figures occupy a special place in these narratives, because their extraordinary courage and ultimate sacrifice have universal resonance. How important has social class been in the history of protest? KN: When asked about the most successful protests or campaigns, examples often include the abolition of slavery and the repeal of the Corn Laws in the 19th century. These movements were largely led by well-connected, relatively wealthy men and women who could exert influence in parliament. Their campaigns were single-issue, respectable, and financially supported, which allowed them to achieve legislative change. By contrast, working-class movements faced a far longer struggle to have their voices heard. Strict class hierarchies and limited resources made it harder to fund campaigns, influence policymakers, or sustain pressure. Yet, despite these constraints, working-class activists often achieved remarkable results with far fewer means than their wealthier counterparts, making their accomplishments all the more significant. TGA: Some protest movements are class-based, with the labour movement being the clearest example. However, protests tend to succeed most when they cross class boundaries and unite different parts of society, because rulers often employ a divide-and-rule strategy. A striking example is the Solidarity movement in Poland during the 1980s. This decade-long mass popular movement succeeded precisely because it united intelligentsia, workers and peasants. KN: This also marks a key difference in 20th century protests. In Britain and Ireland prior to the 1960s, movements were largely class-based, with the labour movement being the strongest. But protests then increasingly took the form of amorphous social movements, not tied to traditional party or trade union structures. These movements sought to connect local struggles with global causes such as environmental campaigns, the anti-Vietnam War movement, peace initiatives and anti-nuclear activism. They were typically more cross-class, framed as part of a wider global struggle rather than a narrow class-based conflict. TGA: One additional factor we haven’t discussed is age. There are striking examples of generational protest movements such as the one that swept across Europe in 1968, including Britain. Climate change activism has emerged as another. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-591947902webready-78185f2-e1767783995489.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of a woman shouting amongst a crowd. A man dressed in a dark suit and hat stands next to her" title="Sylvia Pankhurst addresses a meeting of suffragettes in July 1913. The group made smart use of the mass media (Image by Getty Images)" /> What can today’s protesters learn from their predecessors? KN: That raises a central question: how do you organise against repressive regimes? One key factor is achieving a critical mass – breaking out of silos of class or generation and creating a large, united group capable of overcoming fear. This remains a core goal of any successful protest movement. TGA: It is vital to learn from history. For example, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was violently suppressed, and the Czechoslovak attempt to leave the Warsaw Pact in 1968 was met with Soviet invasion. By 1980–81, activists in Poland were far more cautious, learning from these experiences. There are several key lessons. First, maintain nonviolence. As the Polish dissident Adam Michnik warned: “Those who start by storming the Bastille may end up building their own Bastilles.” Nonviolence achieves more enduring results. Read more | Boston Tea Party: your guide to the protest that ignited a revolution Second, achieve a critical mass. Cascade effects and political theatre are essential, especially in the age of social media. A flash mob may appear impactful but, without sustained engagement, it disappears as quickly as it appeared. Third, develop a strategy. Clearly identify what you aim to change and how protest can effect that change. Non-violent movements succeed by targeting potential defectors within existing power structures – those who may be persuaded to switch allegiance. Protest has a promising future, but its lessons are best understood by studying the past. Timothy Garton Ash is Isaiah Berlin professorial fellow and professor of European studies at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. His latest book is Homelands: A Personal History of Europe (Bodley Head, 2023) Katrina Navickas is professor of history at the University of Hertfordshire. Her books include Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England (Reaktion, 2025) This article was first published in the Christmas 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
She defied the Nazis and paid the ultimate price: why I'm in awe of Sophie Scholl's courage
Novelist Simon Scarrow chooses Sophie Scholl as his history hero
In profile Sophie Scholl was a German student and political activist in the White Rose, a non-violent resistance group opposed to Hitler. After being observed distributing anti-Nazi flyers at her university, Sophie, her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst were found guilty of treason and executed by guillotine; she was just 21. When did you first hear about Sophie Scholl? While I was doing research for my Nazi-era novels about a fictional German police detective. I came across the White Rose resistance movement, and that led me to Sophie. What kind of woman was she? First and foremost, she was an incredibly brave person – as was her brother Hans [co-founder of the White Rose]. She had a huge amount of integrity and wisdom for someone of her age, and understood what they were up against in opposing the Third Reich. I actually consider her a far more impressive figure than someone like Wilhelm Canaris [the German admiral and military intelligence chief executed for treason just before the end of the war], who was a Nazi for a long time before deciding that he wasn’t. What made her a hero? First, her realisation that she and her fellow White Rose activists were involved in a life-and-death struggle for the soul of Germany. Most students in Nazi Germany did themselves no good in terms of historical reputation – after all, they led the infamous Nazi book burnings. Sophie was one of a tiny minority of students who stood up to be counted. Second, her diehard courage. She pursued her anti-Nazi activism regardless of the consequences, and died a hero. If only there had been more like her in Germany at that time. Read more | Simon Schama on British history if Hitler had beaten Churchill: "The Holocaust would have happened here" What was her finest hour? Her refusal to flinch under interrogation or in the courtroom when she and fellow White Rose activists were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by a Nazi judge, Roland Freisler. Her executioner, Johann Reichhart, who lived until the 1970s, later said that Sophie and her co-defendants were among the bravest people he’d ever put to death. Is there anything that you don’t particularly admire about her? I struggle to understand why she became ever more blasé in the way she resisted the Third Reich, openly distributing anti-Nazi leaflets around her university despite knowing the fatal consequences of her actions. By all means oppose the Nazi regime, but do so in the most effective way – and that surely means staying alive. Perhaps she was just resigned to the inevitable? Can you see any parallels between her life and yours? No. She was infinitely wiser, smarter and braver than I was at her age. However, I can see parallels between her and Greta Thunberg. If Greta had been around [during the Second World War], I think they would have got on like a house on fire. What would you say to her if you could meet her now? I’d ask if she ever considered not making a martyr of herself, instead using greater subterfuge in her fight against the regime. Simon Scarrow is a British author known for his historical fiction. His latest paperback, A Death in Berlin (Headline), is out now This article was first published in the January 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
Fake news and the Dreyfus affair: the media-fuelled scandal that divided France
The wrongful conviction for treason of a Jewish army captain in France in the late 19th century exposed antisemitism and virulent nationalism – but also, as Mike Rapport reveals, sparked a flood of ‘fake news’ that presaged the worst of the modern media landscape
In the oppressive heat of his cell in the Mont-Valérien military prison west of Paris on 31 August 1898, Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry wrote a despairing letter to his wife, drank half a bottle of rum, and killed himself. This desperate act was a pivotal moment in one of the best-known causes celebres in modern history: the Dreyfus Affair. The story of Henry’s suicide, following his arrest for forging a document in the controversial case, was co-opted by the nationalist rightwing media as part of a tidal wave of coverage that threatened to destabilise French democracy and public trust in the Republic. The background is well known today. In September 1894, Henry, a counter-espionage officer, had uncovered evidence of a mole within French military intelligence. A cleaner working in the German embassy (and in Henry’s pay) had found a memorandum, since dubbed the ‘bordereau’, written by an officer in the French General Staff revealing military secrets. The handwriting was identified as that of Alfred Dreyfus, an army captain then working in the War Ministry, who was arrested, court-martialled, publicly degraded and hauled off to solitary confinement on the notoriously harsh penal colony of Devil’s Island, off French Guiana. But the army had the wrong man. Contradictions and irregularities in the case soon began to appear. In August 1896, the new head of military intelligence, Lieutenant-Colonel Georges Picquart, was examining more papers stolen from the German embassy. The handwriting on one was identical to that in the bordereau used to convict Dreyfus – but the signature was that of Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, a dissipated, debt-ridden, disreputable officer who had been selling secrets to the Germans for two years. Dreyfus, Picquart realised, was innocent. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/BAL1756949-CMYKWeb-Ready-2c9d689.jpg" width="3683" height="2456" alt="An engraving shows a man lying dead on the floor, while a police officer kneels over him. Another police officer stands by his head, and two more officers are entering the room in the background" title="An engraving depicts the discovery of the suicide of Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry following his arrest for forging a letter incriminating Dreyfus. Some thought his crime justifiable (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> Ignoring the errors Even after this discovery, Dreyfus remained incarcerated for years longer because government officials, the army and large segments of public opinion refused to accept that a terrible error had been made. In part this was a result of the desire to maintain national security by authorities who were keen to avoid demoralising the army just as France secured a military alliance with the Russian empire, and amid heightened tensions with Germany following its annexation of the Alsace-Lorraine region from France in 1871. But it was also due to the fact that Dreyfus was from Alsace, and Jewish – at a time when a virulent strain of antisemitism based on ‘scientific’ racism had emerged, and as antisemites of different political persuasions associated Jews with either socialism or capitalism. Read more | Fake news and Nazis: Richard J Evans on the spectre of conspiracies These motives also played on a deeper division that had riven French society since 1789. There were those who, like Dreyfus himself, embraced the principles of the Revolution and its legacy as embodied in the Third Republic, founded in 1870. These included secularism, parliamentary democracy, civil equality and a world view exulting in science and human reason. Adherents of this strong current within French political culture generally became ‘Dreyfusards’ who supported the officer’s innocence. Their opponents saw 1789 as a fatal breach with France’s true historical destiny: Catholic, hierarchical and monarchical. More recently, this traditional conservatism had been joined by a new form of rightwing ideology promising social reform but which was also nationalist, authoritarian, antisemitic. Many of those with such views became ‘anti-Dreyfusard’, opposed to revisiting the case. These flames were stoked by a virulently partisan newspaper press that played a pivotal role in the battle for public opinion. Print media had experienced a boom stimulated by more rapid communications, the introduction of photographs into newspapers, an expansion in advertising, and new forms of printing technology that made periodicals quicker and cheaper to produce and more widely available. At that time, France had a particularly vibrant press. Free, compulsory and universal primary education for boys and girls from the early 1880s encouraged literacy, and a press law enacted in 1881 lifted almost all restrictions on what could be published, although this was rolled back in 1893 and 1894 after a spate of anarchist bombings. Journalists and publishers could be sued for slander, but cases were rarely successful. Between 1881 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the number of periodical titles mushroomed by 250 per cent. These publications included broadsheets and tabloid newspapers representing the whole range of political opinions from the radical left to the extreme right. Yet within this vibrant ecosystem of print lurked a danger that remains familiar in our age of social media, online news and artificial intelligence. It was all too easy to spread what we now call ‘fake news’ – misinformation (falsehoods spread unintentionally), disinformation (fabrications aimed at manipulating readers politically and socially) and malinformation (deception based on some truth, but twisted in such a way as to deceive). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1404448124cmykWeb-Ready-a0c4306.jpg" width="2374" height="1582" alt="A black and white photograph of a man wearing military uniform, including a hat with "74" written on the front. He has a large, heavy moustache" title="Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, the officer who really wrote the treasonous memorandum attributed to Dreyfus. He was acquitted by a tribunal in 1898 (Image by Getty Images)" /> Fake news During the Dreyfus Affair, the newspaper press was infused with ‘fake news’. Not for the last time, the episode exposed the friction between free speech on the one hand and, on the other hand, the challenges that arise when people of bad faith abuse that freedom, spreading falsehoods to manipulate public opinion, demonise certain groups of people, or undermine faith in the rule of law and democratic government. The Dreyfus case sparked a truly explosive public controversy after Walsin Esterhazy was finally tried – and acquitted with unseemly haste – by a military court in January 1898. On 13 January, novelist Émile Zola published J’Accuse…!, an open letter to the president of the Republic, in L’Aurore newspaper. He accused the government and army of committing a gross injustice and of conspiring to cover up the truth. He specifically highlighted and decried the antisemitism, militarism and authoritarianism behind the falsehoods: “It is a crime to lead public opinion astray,” Zola wrote, “to manipulate it for a death-dealing purpose and pervert it to the point of delirium. It is a crime to poison the minds of the humble, ordinary people, to whip reactionary and intolerant passions into a frenzy while sheltering behind the odious bastion of antisemitism… It is a crime to play on patriotism to further the aims of hatred.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-90758187cmykWeb-Ready-51ffbc8.jpg" width="2642" height="1761" alt="A yellow newspaper page with the headline "J'accuse!" written across the top" title="Émile Zola’s open letter to the president of the Republic, accusing the army and government of a cover-up in the Dreyfus Affair, exposed deep rifts in French society (Image by Getty Images)" /> Following Zola’s outburst, the Dreyfus Affair erupted into a full-scale public storm. Except on rare occasions, newspapers tended to reinforce the beliefs of their readership rather than challenge them with facts. Giving readers what they wanted to hear was partly driven by economics: the conservative Le Figaro, for example, had stopped publishing Zola’s articles towards the end of 1897 after he openly embraced the Dreyfusard cause, which hurt sales of the newspaper. Yet much of the fake news had an even more insidious purpose. Anti-Dreyfusard papers fuelled nationalist prejudices by targeting Jews; claimed to be defending the ‘honour’ of the army; and railed against the ‘unpatriotic’ manoeuvres of the Dreyfusards – all as a means of galvanising support for the assorted authoritarians, monarchists, nationalists and antisemites who loathed the Republic. It was not that the Dreyfusards were innocent of spreading fake news. Although much of what Zola wrote in J’Accuse…! turned out to be accurate, he did not get everything right, as he himself appeared to admit when he finished by saying that he would willingly submit to prosecution for defamation under the 1881 Press Law. Zola did, in fact, face prosecution in 1898, avoiding imprisonment only by slipping away in June to England and living there in exile for a year. Read more | “A tidal wave of digital material will overwhelm recordkeeping institutions”: the future of history Even some leftwing Dreyfusard newspapers tended to casually use the antisemitic trope of the Jew as capitalist to explain popular hostility against Jews. Anti-Dreyfusard publications saw Jews, socialists and leftwing republicans as a ‘Syndicate of Treason’ (as the vitriolic journalist Henri Rochefort put it). However, the Dreyfusard press was prone to sharing conspiracy theories of its own, seeing its opponents as part of an interwoven plot involving the Catholic church and the nationalists, aiming to destroy the Republic and the inheritance of 1789. Yet the anti-Dreyfusard press had most of the running: of the 55 dailies published at the time, only eight came out as Dreyfusard from February 1898, almost all of them with relatively low circulation numbers. The media was dominated by anti-Dreyfusard titles, which had an almost open field in which to bombard readers with a swirl of half-truths and outright lies, stoking prejudices and stirring up fears. Forgiveable forgery One of the most egregious moments came in the wake of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry’s death. After his colleague, Picquart, had exposed Esterhazy as the real traitor in 1896, Henry had tried to bolster the case against Dreyfus by forging a letter that ‘proved’ his guilt, introducing it into the dossier of evidence. The ruse was successful until, as the pressure mounted over the course of 1898, the government investigated and discovered that forgery, leading to Henry’s arrest and suicide. For anti-Dreyfusard journalists, Henry’s crime was forgiveable: it was ‘patriotic’ because it served a higher cause – the security of the nation. Dreyfus was guilty anyway, they claimed; and even if he were innocent, those who sought to clear his name were traitors working for Germany. The virulently nationalist La Patrie accused Zola of doing untold harm to the army: “And since that day, the damage has surged in like a torrent, roared like a tempest. Who has not recognised in this tactic the workings of Bismarckian [ie German] politics?” The idea that Henry was a martyr to the cause of patriotism gained traction when the explicitly and graphically antisemitic La Libre Parole opened a subscription for the Lieutenant-Colonel’s widow, Berthe, which received no fewer than 25,000 donations. The newspaper published the many antisemitic and anti-republican messages sent along with the money. La Libre Parole means ‘Free Speech’, making it a case study for how prejudice and anti-democratic forces cloak themselves in the very freedoms that they seek to destroy or to deny to others. The Dreyfus case was – rightly or wrongly – seen as connected with both national security and the country’s future, so both sides entrenched themselves deeply within their positions. The more that the problems with Dreyfus’s conviction trickled out, the more the anti-Dreyfusards reinvigorated strategies that rested less on facts than on what is today called ‘gaslighting’ and on deflection, both of which involved stoking prejudices and demeaning opponents. Gaslighting, by which the perpetrator seeks to cast doubt on the truth, was deployed by Édouard Drumont, editor of La Libre Parole, who in June 1898 assured his readers that Dreyfusards were merely “a clutch of cosmopolitans who always talk of pieces of paper and documents but never prove anything” – the term ‘cosmopolitan’ being a dog-whistle term denoting unpatriotic or Jewish people. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/RV185-14cmykWeb-Ready-bfe91fd.jpg" width="2464" height="1643" alt="The top image shows a man in a suit with a moustache sitting at a desk and looking to the right. The bottom image shows a bearded man wearing glasses attached to a string, looking directly into the camera" title="Nationalist writer Maurice Barrès (top) entreated readers to consider national security above the facts of the miscarriage of justice, in contrast with the moral arguments of Dreyfusard Émile Zola (Images by TopFoto and Getty Images)" /> Nationalist writer Maurice Barrès made a more sophisticated use of gaslighting. Nothing in the Dreyfus Affair was demonstrably true, he argued in Le Journal in February 1898, so “how do you intend… to undertake to solve the problem when you do not have all the data?” he demanded of the Dreyfusards. Barrès’ purpose was to cast doubt on the significance of the few facts that were, at that point, already public knowledge. He took this further by suggesting that there are some truths that are “foreign to individual reason”, and that national circumstances and interests were the true barometer of what was just and true. “It is necessary to judge things in the relative,” Barrès argued, opening the way for his readership to be secure in their prejudices – because for them the army’s honour and national security were more important than the facts of any miscarriage of justice. Anti-Dreyfusard newspapers tried in various ways to deflect their readers’ attention away from the question of the convicted man’s innocence and onto other targets. This was a strategy behind the argument that Henry’s forgery was ‘patriotic’: his crime was minor compared to the real danger, which would be the victory of the Dreyfusards, who were no better than traitors. La Patrie proclaimed in September 1898: “Let us leave those cosmopolitans from Frankfurt to howl with joy over the tomb of that modest child of French soil [Henry]… Let us turn away with disgust from the spectacle of the odious triumph of the worst enemies of the army and of the country.” In that one sentence, the newspaper connected the Dreyfusards with treason, with Germany and Jews (‘cosmopolitans’), and with the ignominy of defeat – ‘Frankfurt’ being a reference to the humiliating peace treaty with Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Demeaning caricatures At the same time, the anti-Dreyfusard press demeaned their opponents, caricaturing them as effeminate wimps, sexually sterile and highly strung, and contrasted them with the muscular, virile masculinity of the army officers whom they were accused of attacking. Zola was frequently depicted with simian characteristics: hairy, fat, thick-lipped. Dreyfus and other Jewish figures were ascribed the whole range of antisemitic tropes. La Libre Parole compared the ‘French’ femininity of Henry’s widow, Berthe, with the Jewish Dreyfusard Joseph Reinach, who was “puffy, swarthy, sweaty, stomach bulging”. For some, it did not even matter that Dreyfus was innocent: he was Jewish, so for the nationalists the greater ‘truth’ was that he could never be French. The process of gaslighting and deflection combined to stoke prejudices and popular fears, fogging out the original question of Dreyfus’s innocence. Read more | How Napoleon (almost) destroyed the French Revolution Yet a denouement was eventually reached. In February 1899, President Félix Faure – who opposed reopening Dreyfus’s case – died of a brain haemorrhage. He was succeeded by a Dreyfusard, Émile Loubet, whose election by parliament prompted an unsuccessful coup attempt by the Ligue des Patriotes and the Ligue antisémitique, who provided the street muscle of the anti-Dreyfusard movement. In June, the appeals court quashed Dreyfus’s conviction and ordered a retrial, which took place in August and September 1899 in Rennes – Paris being deemed too dangerous. Shockingly, the military tribunal again found the captain guilty. President Loubet issued a formal pardon, but Dreyfus was not officially cleared until 1906. He returned to the army, serving with merit in the First World War. The Dreyfus Affair showed how, when the stakes were high and when divisions ran deep, a torrent of half-truths, lies, deflection, the stoking of fear and prejudices, and appeals to ‘patriotism’ made it difficult for citizens to make informed decisions. It also demonstrated that many citizens were content to have their prejudices reaffirmed rather than critically examined. This is why Barrès’ argument that the nation had needs that were above reason and truth was so corrosive to democratic politics. The principle that truth, justice and legality could be judged only according to national interests allowed readers to indulge in a kind of relativism that justified falsehoods and injustice in pursuit of a conception of France that excluded groups who were the bogeymen of the nationalist right: Jews, foreigners, Protestants, Freemasons, socialists and others. It also exposed the spiky question that every democracy faces when freedom of expression becomes a means of undermining confidence and trust in its institutions: how to defend itself without infringing the very liberties that are its essence. Ultimately, the lesson of the Dreyfus Affair is that, in an age of mass media, citizens not only need to be equipped to make the honest effort to assess critically their sources of information and to examine their positions with verifiable evidence: they have to be willing to do so. In December 1898, L’Aurore understood that this was essential to the survival of democracy: “It is for citizens to inform themselves, to think, to use their will; it is for them to reform their morals, to no longer let themselves be taken for fools or as things to be juggled with and to emancipate themselves, not by force, but by ideas.” We need, the newspaper concluded, to “enlighten [our] brains, not slice them open!” Mike Rapport is reader in modern European history at the University of Glasgow This article was first published in the November 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "A UK museum that tells the long, rich history of migration is long overdue"
Kavita Puri on explorations of the migrant experience
If you gaze up at the skyline in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, you might spot a new addition. Made from stainless-steel panels and shaped like a rollercoaster, the Tornado sits on top of the city’s newly opened Fenix, a museum that tells the story of human migration. Visitors climb to the distinctive Tornado up a sweeping staircase at the museum’s entrance, along a meandering route that represents the many different journeys people take to reach their destinations. On arriving at the viewing platform, you can take in a panoramic view of the city and its waterways where millions of Europeans once boarded ships in Europe’s largest port, many of them leaving for a new life in the US. Today, Rotterdam is home to more than 170 nationalities. It’s an interesting choice to open a museum to migration at a time when the subject has become so toxic, not least in the Netherlands. Designed by the Chinese firm MAD Architects, the museum displays have exhibits including thousands of suitcases, images of refugees, and a life-sized city bus. Perhaps reasoned discussions about migration can be inspired by art. Read more | "Museums are magical places": Kavita Puri on a new initiative encouraging close encounters with history This is not the first European museum dedicated to migration: they exist in many countries, including Germany, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Poland and France. So it is surprising that the UK does not have a permanent migration museum, only one that has spent years in makeshift venues. After all, millions of people have left Britain over the centuries, not least during the building of its empire, while inward migration – particularly during the postwar years – has shaped our language, culture, cuisine and art. Until recently, you could visit the Migration Museum in its temporary home in Lewisham Shopping Centre, housed in a former H&M store between Foot Locker and TK Maxx. Outside the entrance stood a sculpture entitled Wall, comprising two panels from the Berlin Wall painted by artists. During its five years in Lewisham, the museum displayed significant exhibitions including Taking Care of Business: Migrant Entrepreneurs and the Making of Modern Britain. In listening booths (repurposed H&M changing rooms), visitors could hear oral histories recounted by local businesspeople, including one Italian who ran a delicatessen and described how different Lewisham was from Puglia. More well-known voices including Lord Bilimoria who, frustrated by the lagers on offer at Indian restaurants, created his own hugely successful beer, Cobra. There was also an impressive installation replicating a Chinese takeaway. Read more | How has migration changed the world? Lewisham has a hugely diverse population, and in 1977 saw members of the far-right National Front clash with anti-racist protesters on its streets. It’s fitting, then, that the Migration Museum was embedded in the heart of that community – a place where anyone could feel comfortable, especially those who may never have crossed the threshold of a museum before. It has now closed, though, and the mall is being redeveloped. A permanent Migration Museum is planned for a new site in the City of London, which has been donated by a British Sikh entrepreneur. It’s due to open in 2028. The new space will span three floors, covering nearly 3,000 square metres. Members of the curatorial team are currently discussing how they might approach the project, including how they can co-curate with local communities. Subjects for temporary exhibitions might include local migrant stories from around the City, climate refugees, the role of humour in the migrant experience, and how protest has driven change. The story of migration in these islands is a long one, written by those who left and those who came. Britain today has been shaped by movements of people in both directions. A museum that tells this long and rich history – a shared story, one of interconnectedness – is long overdue. It does not need to be divisive, but can be a reflection and recognition of who we are today. This column was first published in the August 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
"There's little understanding of the shared history of Britain and the subcontinent" | South Asian Heritage Month
As Britain celebrates South Asian Heritage Month, Shalina Patel, Sumita Mukherjee and Shrabani Basu talk to Matt Elton about how histories of the subcontinent can be better shared and explored
Matt Elton: What do you see as the value of South Asian Heritage Month? And do you think this kind of specific history month is generally a good thing? Shalina Patel: Black History Month was first marked in the UK in 1987, at a time when there was a huge absence of understanding about black history. Fast forward 30-plus years, and there are groups now advocating for black history 365 days a year. They feel that it shouldn’t be relegated to a specific month, but should be integrated [into conversations] all year. So if we think about the journey, I’d say that South Asian Heritage Month [SAHM, first held in 2020] is really important as a starting point, because there is currently an absence of understanding of the diversity within South Asian culture, communities and history. True, there’s a risk that this is the only time of year when people will talk about this topic, but we’re starting from a place where so few conversations are taking place on a public scale. So marking SAHM is really important now – and I hope that we will get to a point where we won’t need it anymore, because [South Asian stories] will be really integrated into people’s understanding. Sumita Mukherjee: I agree that it’s really important to increase the diversity of history that is being told. SAHM gives us the opportunity to have this conversation – it encourages the media and other forums to showcase stories and histories around South Asia. I would say that there’s an issue, though, with the timing as it stands, because most schools and universities are closed in late July and August, and lots of people are on holiday. Shrabani Basu: I think the important thing is to make it inclusive – it shouldn’t just be South Asians eating curries and watching dances. The point is to make it a national festival that everybody looks forward to. It’s the holiday season, so go for that – make it something that excites people. The danger with all these things is that they lose momentum. To keep it fresh and popular we need to raise the bar, make it exciting, make people want to see what’s on the agenda, and take it forward that way. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/shutterstockeditorial12129324a-1e62406.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="A family gather together. They are dressed in white robes and the woman is balancing a jug on her head. She is carrying a child. A man next to her is carrying a child on his shoulders" title="A family undertakes a lengthy migration following the partition of India in 1947. Millions of Muslims left India for Pakistan, with Hindus and Sikhs trekking in the opposite direction; perhaps 1 million died (Image by Shutterstock)" /> So it has a value as a springboard for these kinds of conversations, but also as a way of connecting South Asian history to wider society? SB: Absolutely. Far too little is known about South Asian history – which is the history of undivided India to some extent, and our cultures from all these countries that make up the region. Even many South Asians don’t know much about it. SP: I agree. SAHM is also a really important opportunity to unlock those conversations within the community itself. I think that we as a community are not necessarily great at talking about our history, partly because of things that happened within the memory of our grandparents and great-grandparents. SAHM is about having those internal family conversations as well as having conversations on a public scale. Read more | Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "Many south Asian diasporic families don’t know of their First World War links" SM: This idea of inclusion and celebration is a great thing, but sometimes – and we see this with Black History Month – there’s a focus on celebrating certain figures and palatable histories without looking at the dark side of history. There’s a tendency to celebrate South Asians and not criticise their roles in history. Also, a lot of the focus is on India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – places that were part of the British empire. But South Asia is a much broader region than just those places, and that inclusiveness has not yet come through in the events and celebratory elements I’ve seen so far. SB: Absolutely. Very few people in north India know anything about Sri Lanka, for example. The whole region is so vast and so varied that we ourselves don’t know everything about it. As Sumita said, we have a very dark history, too: partition, riots, wars within the region – there are a lot of dark, dark patches for which our own countries are to blame, not just outside forces. SP: This month provides a really good opportunity to celebrate that diversity and to push the idea that the South Asian community is not some kind of monolith. Sometimes I put myself in a category – as ‘British South Asian’ – but what does that mean? There are so many different types of people and different experiences within that. We need to engage with all of those differences, even within the communities. SAHM is still relatively new, so I hope we will see more and more of that kind of diversity and those different types of stories coming through. How can this process work better, to foster research across communities – particularly on migration and movement, a major theme of this year’s SAHM? SP: I’ve been a teacher for 15 years now, and I’ve been very lucky to work in a secondary school in north-west London that is very diverse. My school is so positive about making sure that we share histories that are relevant to our students, so there is a huge amount of South Asian history explored. But that’s been a real journey. Ten years ago, it was just me and my department researching these things on our own, because there weren’t the resources out there. Now I’m really proud to say that I’ve helped write material about a lot of these issues. Just a couple of months ago, a textbook called Asian Empires in the Silk Roads was published [by Oxford University Press], for which I wrote the chapter on Mughal India. I’ve also helped write a textbook about the British empire. So things are definitely changing, and many more resources are available. The problem is that it’s up to individual schools whether they teach the British empire at all, and whether India is part of that story. It’s so important that we don’t teach only the British Raj as South Asian history. Students also love learning about the Mughals, because they are fascinating and dramatic – much more interesting than the Tudors. But I also teach my students about South Asian migration, as well as stories of more modern South Asian people – [Second World War spy] Noor Inayat Khan, for example, and [Sikh princess, suffragette and Queen Victoria’s god-daughter] Sophia Duleep Singh. The big problem is that there’s still little understanding of how much shared history there is between Britain and the subcontinent. If kids are learning about the First and Second World Wars but not hearing about the contributions of Indian soldiers, then that is not telling the full story. Read more | Hakim Adi | “Racism in Britain has a long history – but so does anti-racism” SB: I feel that there is still little knowledge about that topic. During the recent VE Day celebrations, there was only a little mention of how many Indian soldiers played a part. I do understand that time is very limited in a commentary but a few more lines, a little more emphasis, would’ve been great. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-1278032407-1db2f2d.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="A group of British Indian soldiers stand and sit around a single chair with a draughts board on it. Two men are playing draughts" title="British Indian Army troops play draughts following evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940. The role of the 2.5 million Indian troops who served in the Second World War is sometimes overlooked (Image by Getty Images)" /> At the front of the procession were the FANYs [First Aid Nursing Yeomanry] – women who also served as secret agents in the Second World War. I would’ve loved to hear that these secret agents came from all parts of the world: Noor Inayat Khan was half Indian, and Krystyna Skarbek was from Poland. The war was fought on the shoulders of the people of the empire, and I think that point should have been raised. More than 2.5 million Indian troops served in the Second World War – the biggest volunteer army in the conflict – and they didn’t merit a single mention at the VE Day concert. So this narrative is still not there – and it needs to be told, to be taught in schools. That is the only way forward. SM: British history itself is South Asian history. It’s not just about the history of the empire, because South Asians have been in Britain since the 17th century. Migration is not just a contemporary phenomenon: in the 19th century, South Asians of all ilks were influencing culture in Britain and working in its port cities. South Asians also went to Mauritius, to Malaysia, to Uganda, to South Africa, to Guyana, to Jamaica, and to other places – the South Asian diaspora has such a vibrant, interesting history. When discussing migration, I’d return to the problem of centrism around India, Bangladesh and Pakistan – there’s so much to say about other parts of the region such as Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Nepal. SP: When I teach the transatlantic slave trade, I also speak about indentured labour. Because the root cause of more than a million Indians going to places such as Mauritius was the abolition of slavery. So the histories of the Caribbean, South Asia and Britain all intersect. SM: And of course the history of Windrush, which is relatively well known and taught in schools, is also about Indo-Caribbean people who came over with that generation. Do tensions, such those that arose between India and Pakistan in May, make researching the region’s histories harder? SB: Oh, absolutely. Because the first thing when you have a situation of conflict is that visas get cancelled. So researchers can’t go, academics can’t travel. India cancelled visas for people of Pakistani origin, and the same probably happened for British Indians wanting to travel to Pakistan. So British Asians of Indian or Pakistani origin who want to study [on the subcontinent] will find it difficult to access archives or do any sort of research. That’s the first practical block. Then it spreads to filmmaking and cultural life as well. The minute you have conflict, these barriers go up – filmmakers can’t travel, musicians can’t travel. It doesn’t help anybody. SM: It’s been very difficult over the past few years anyway, with geopolitical tensions in the region, for people with Indian passports to research in Pakistan and vice versa. So the current conflict has only escalated things. It’s important to note that, though these recent conflicts are rooted in present-day issues, they also have longstanding historical reasons. So there’s an opportunity to reiterate and understand the history behind these troubles, especially in Kashmir. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-2215785244-c282475.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="An Indian soldier is in the centre of the image, wearing a black mask and green helmet. Behind him, there is a crowd and two Indian flags" title="An Indian soldier stands on alert in Srinagar, Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, following the terrorist attack that killed 26 people in Pahalgam in April 2025 (Image by Getty Images)" /> SB: I don’t think people know the real story of what happened in Kashmir – how this line of control was drawn, how the Hindu maharaja went over to India, how the invasion happened, why this conflict started. SM: It’s also coupled with geographical literacy – understanding the geography of the region, Kashmir’s location, the environmental reasons, the water lines and so on. SP: There’s a real absence of understanding of the partition story, of how these borders were drawn. Again, this is a shared history with Britain – the story of partition is a British story as well as a South Asian story. It was framed as a peaceful takeover, which we all know was absolutely not the case. This history shouldn’t be contentious, but it is, because Britain portrayed partition as a peaceful handover, which undermined the reality of the violence and bloodshed that engulfed these new nations in 1947. There’s also been an absence of personal stories about this history because of the horrific things that happened at that time. The personal, the political, the geographical – so many factors involved, which is why this is such a misunderstood history. SB: When the conflict broke out in May, there were ugly scenes outside the Indian High Commission and the Pakistan High Commission. It’s something we absolutely do not need. The South Asian community here should be united rather than divided, when it becomes a law and order problem. Read more | The untold story of India’s WW2 prisoners of war What areas of historical research would you highlight as important today? SM: I’m working on the history of South Asian children and their migration to Britain. This is part of a growing field looking at children in history not just as distant people in the background but as historical actors themselves. I’m exploring the role that young people played, changing society, changing politics. Colleagues are also working on the informal labour of women in housework and homeworking – sewing, childminding, the things that women often do at home that isn’t recorded within formal economic histories – to understand the contribution that South Asian women have made to the economy in Britain, especially women of Pakistani origin in northern England. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-2155867340-6eda065.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="A row of South Asian women sit at tables in a factory, using sewing machines. Some of them are looking at their work, while others are looking at the camera" title="Women of South Asian heritage work at a clothing factory in Newcastle, 1968. The contribution of South Asian women to the British economy, particularly those involved in homeworking such as sewing, is now being researched for the first time, reveals Sumita Mukherjee (Image by Getty Images)" /> SB: I would love to see oral histories from earlier generations being recorded. Not enough of this has been done. There was a little documentary recording people who migrated to Britain in the sixties. It was so interesting seeing their lifestyles, how they were so formally dressed at all times; compare it with today, when everyone is so casual, even the new immigrants. These stories tell us so much about how these people came here. I feel more and more that, as we lose that generation, we need to save their stories. I wish they would be recorded on film and audio as much as possible. SP: Oral histories, real personal stories, are so important. I always encourage young people and others to record their family histories – to talk to their grandparents, if they still have them, to record those migration stories. I did that with my granddad: there are so many things I didn’t know about his migration story. A friend of mine, jeweller Anisha Parmar, invites South Asian women to come together and use family jewellery as a way to explore their heritage and their history. It’s been incredible to see young South Asian people delve into their identity and heritage through the medium of gold jewellery in particular. When we think about South Asian items in museums, often we are thinking about beautiful, ornate pieces of jewellery worn by maharajas and royalty. But she’s made more personal connections. We’ve all got such items – I’m wearing my grandma’s bangles right now. SB: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission ordered a report looking at the names of soldiers from India and Africa who, despite a pledge that every soldier who died in the world wars would be commemorated with a headstone, were not recorded in that way. To address that, fantastic work has been done by Greenwich University and the UK Punjab Heritage Association to find the names of soldiers from the Punjab in the First World War, as well as details of regiments, when they joined, if they died. I find that quite exciting: a way of making right something that was wrong – to commemorate some 50,000 Indians whose names were lost. Shalina Patel is a historian, teacher and author. Her first book is The History Lessons (Icon, 2024) Sumita Mukherjee is professor of modern history at the University of Bristol. Her books include Indian Suffragettes (Oxford University Press India, 2018) Shrabani Basu is a historian, journalist and author. Her latest book is The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer (Bloomsbury, 2021) This article was first published in the August 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Suing for equality: how Sarah Mae Flemming began the legal fight against segregation
The year before the arrest of Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, another black American woman started a legal fight against segregation on public transport. Clive Webb and Tom Adam Davies highlight her role in the civil rights battle
On 2 November 2005, thousands of mourners crowded into the Greater Grace Temple in Detroit to attend the funeral of black American civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Former US president Bill Clinton led the tributes before a congregation that held hands and sang the protest anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’. The story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama is familiar yet sometimes misunderstood. Her arrest for refusing to surrender a bus seat in December 1955 followed not the spontaneous action of an apolitical seamstress but a calculated decision by a lifelong activist who, along with other members of the black community, had put increasing pressure on white city leaders to end the daily indignities of segregated bus journeys. Her detention may have been the catalyst for the desegregation of public transport in the South, but other black women before her had also braved similar hurt, humiliation and intimidation. Among them was a woman called Sarah Mae Flemming. In June 1954, Flemming was involved in an incident that is far less celebrated than the Montgomery bus boycott. Yet it was an incident that truly laid the foundation for the eventual overturning of Jim Crow laws as applied to public transport. Flemming was a child of the Great Depression, one of seven children raised by a farming couple whose own parents had been enslaved. Born on 28 June 1933, she grew up alongside her siblings in a busy household near Eastover, South Carolina, a small community some 20 miles south-east of the state capital, Columbia. After graduating from high school, Flemming worked briefly for a relative in Ohio before returning to South Carolina to help support her family, taking a position as a maid for white residents in one of Columbia’s affluent suburbs. Read more | Emmett Till: the murder that reshaped the American civil rights movement The day that changed her life, 22 June 1954, started much as any other: she boarded a bus to work. At first there was standing room only, until a seat was vacated by a departing white passenger. When Flemming took the seat, however, the driver shouted at her to move. According to contentious evidence he gave later in court, she had breached the ‘colour line’ – the long-standing system of racial segregation enforced by so-called Jim Crow laws – by sitting in front of two white women. Embarrassed, Flemming decided that she would walk the remaining 2 miles to work, and pulled the cord for the next stop. At that time, black Americans were required to enter and leave buses by the rear door – but the aisle was too crowded, so she tried to follow white passengers through the front exit. The driver stood in her way, then struck her in the stomach. Flemming was forced to shuffle through the rear door, and from there to a hospital. Worse than the pain from the punch was the wound to her dignity. From insult, opportunity The hurt and humiliation of one young woman did, though, present an opportunity to the broader black community. Just a month earlier, the United States Supreme Court had reached a landmark decision in the case of Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, outlawing school segregation. To Modjeska Monteith Simkins, the secretary of the South Carolina branch of the NAACP – the national organisation founded in 1909 to fight for civil rights for people of colour – Flemming’s mistreatment presented a chance to test whether that ruling also applied to public transport. Flemming agreed to help, resolving to challenge Jim Crow laws despite the risks to which she would be exposed. Simkins hired white lawyer Philip Wittenberg, who filed a suit accusing the bus company of having violated Flemming’s right to the full protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. He sought $25,000 in damages. The legal process in Flemming v South Carolina Electric and Gas Company (who operated the bus) was convoluted and slow. District Court Judge George Bell Timmerman, a staunch segregationist, dismissed the case on the grounds that the Brown decision applied only to schools and not to public transport. The NAACP assisted with an appeal to the US Fourth Circuit Court, which deemed that the Brown decision applied to all aspects of public life – and that the Flemming case must proceed to trial. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-838649138-ac65a26.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Four men stand in a line, holding up a poster that reads "Stamp out Mississippi-ism! Join NAACP"" title="NAACP leaders hold a poster against racial bias in Mississippi at the peak of the civil rights struggle in the mid-1950s – a battle involving countless ordinary black people (Image by Getty Images)" /> Civil rights activists sensed that they were on the verge of a breakthrough – a perception sharpened when, in April 1956, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the bus company. NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins saw the decision as the end of bus segregation, telling reporters: “Now that the Supreme Court has spoken with clarity, we are hopeful that the majority of communities throughout the South will fall in line.” There seemed good reason for such optimism. Within a day, transit companies in 13 cities across the region had announced the desegregation of their buses. That included Montgomery City Lines, which instructed its drivers not to enforce segregated seating, an action blocked when city officials secured a court injunction. Read more | How did the US civil rights movement influence Britain? Yet the Flemming case did not win the fight against the colour line in Montgomery – where the boycott was ongoing, and would continue for over a year – or elsewhere. Both sides in the civil rights struggle soon realised that the Supreme Court had not actually determined whether segregated busing was unconstitutional, only that it would not consider an appeal until the lower court had actually heard the case. Battle lines in Montgomery remained drawn: white city leaders secured an injunction that stopped the bus company desegregating, while black activists persevered with their boycott. “Jim Crow Dies Hard,” affirmed a headline in the Washington Post. Proving the point, when the Flemming case returned to the district court in June 1956, Judge Timmerman dismissed it a second time. Not until June 1957, following a successful appeal by Flemming’s lawyers, did the case finally convene. It was not worth the wait. An entirely white male jury took only 30 minutes to decide against the plaintiff. Serving a greater good Flemming had lost the will to fight. Rather than remain involved in the escalating civil rights struggle, she retreated into the privacy of family life, raising three children with her husband, whom she married while the case was ongoing. “As for myself,” she informed the press, “I never rode a city bus since they put me off and I never will again.” Her own battle had ended in defeat, but Flemming had contributed to the broader triumph of civil rights activists. In February 1956, lawyers filed suit on behalf of four black female plaintiffs who had been mistreated on Montgomery buses. Four months later, a district court ruled in their favour, striking down bus segregation. In November, the US Supreme Court affirmed the decision in the case of Browder v Gayle. A year after it had begun, the organisers of the Montgomery bus boycott had won a decisive victory. It is not known whether Flemming was even aware of the fact, but the judges who ruled that segregated busing was unconstitutional cited as precedent the appeal court ruling in her case that ‘separate but equal’ no longer had any basis in law. Flemming did not receive justice, but her fight through the courts had served an even greater good. Sarah Mae Flemming lived the rest of her life, away from the spotlight, in Eastover with her husband and their three children until her untimely death on 16 June 1993, aged just 59. By then, Rosa Parks had long overshadowed her – a situation compounded by the fact that Flemming never spoke publicly about her contribution to the civil rights cause. Barely a footnote in histories of the movement written during her lifetime, her story has belatedly been rediscovered. Today, locals and visitors to downtown Columbia can stroll along Sarah Mae Flemming Way to see the impressive mural that honours her memory. It is a reminder that, though charismatic civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X became the focus of most attention, the fight for racial equality was as much – if not more – about ordinary people such as Flemming performing extraordinary acts of courage. Clive Webb and Tom Adam Davies are, respectively, professor and associate professor of American history at the University of Sussex This article was first published in the July 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine