HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2024-12-27T17:44:23.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The battle of Marston Moor: what happened?
items: A big day in history: Mary Ann Nichols becomes the first victim of ‘Jack the Ripper’ (31 August 1888)
items: A big day in history: the first baby is born to English settlers in the Americas
items: Why has Britain decided to leave the EU?
items: 8 historical events that happened in June
items: 8 remarkable historical events that happened in May
items: There was more to the 80s than Maggie
items: My favourite place: Dominic Sandbrook

The battle of Marston Moor: what happened?
type: item
date: 2021-07-02T08:50:05.000Z
creator: Dominic Sandbrook
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: A big day in history
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
description: Dominic Sandbrook explores the events of 2 July 1644 – the date that Oliver Cromwell's intervention in the battle of Marston Moor proved decisive in the English Civil Wars
encoded: At seven o'clock on the evening of 2 July 1644, Prince Rupert of the Rhine gazed out across the low-lying field of Marston Moor, just outside York. At his back were some 17,000 royalist troops, many exhausted after a long day's march. In front of him, across the fields, were the lines of his combined Parliamentarian and Scottish adversaries, at least 20,000 strong, their armour still glinting in the summer twilight. Rain was in the air; a thunderstorm was brewing. The king's nephew was anxious for battle, but perhaps it could wait until the morning. Hearing the Parliamentarian army singing psalms, he decided to call it a day and told his men to break for supper. Only moments later, the allied army struck. As thunder rolled across the moor, the Scottish and Roundhead allies began to stream down the gentle slope, picking up speed, adrenaline coursing through their horses’ veins. After years of stalemate, the great battle for control of the north, the decisive battle of the Civil War, was under way. Oliver Cromwell: the secret of his military genius At first it seemed that, as so many times before, Rupert’s forces would win the day. On the allied right, Sir Thomas Fairfax’s men struggled to get across the ditches between them and their royalist opponents, many falling under a hail of musket fire. Spotting the enemy musketeers, Fairfax wrote later, he decided “to charge them. We were a long time engaged with one another, but at last we routed that part of their Wing.” He turned to get back to his remaining men, “but that part of the Enemy which stood, perceiving the disorder they were in, had charged and routed them, before I could get to them.” As darkness drew in and the allied right crumpled, the royalists began to make headway in the centre, too. More than half of the Scottish infantry and many of the Parliamentarian forces panicked and ran; for a moment, it looked as though the day was lost for the allied cause. But salvation came from the left, where Lieutenant-Ge…

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A big day in history: Mary Ann Nichols becomes the first victim of ‘Jack the Ripper’ (31 August 1888)
type: item
date: 2018-08-31T04:00:56.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: A big day in history
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
subject: Victorian crime and punishment
description: On 31 August 1888, the body of a homeless women, brutally murdered and mutilated, was found in a Whitechapel backstreet. Here, as part of our 'big day in history' series, Dominic Sandbrook explores the discovery of Jack the Ripper's first victim, Mary Ann Nichols
encoded: As London’s bells rang in the last day of August 1888, rain was falling. It had been one of the wettest summers in living memory, and there was thunder in the air. On the horizon a fierce red glow seared the sky above Shadwell, where a huge fire had broken out in the dry dock. Some time between one and two o’clock that morning, a woman called Mary Ann Nichols, known to her friends as ‘Polly’, was thrown out of the kitchen of the shabby lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street, Spitalfields. Fate had dealt Polly a rough hand. A 43-year-old mother of five children, she was separated from her husband and now drifted from one workhouse to another, scratching a meagre existence from handouts and casual prostitution. Read more: Your guide to Jack the Ripper 6 notorious unsolved crimes from history The 10 worst Britons in history Short of the four pence she needed to pay for a bed in the lodging house, Polly once more found herself on the street. “Never mind,” she said, gesturing at the velvet-trimmed straw bonnet she was wearing. “I’ll soon get my doss money. See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now.” The implication was clear: she was heading back out to find a punter. An hour or so later, Polly was seen by one of her roommates on the corner of Whitechapel Road, clearly drunk. She had made her doss money three times over, she boasted, but had already spent it on gin and was off to make some more. That was the last time Mary Ann Nichols was seen alive. At 3.40am, a carter found her lying in the darkened doorway of a stable. Her throat had been slit and her body horribly mutilated. The murderer who would later be dubbed ‘Jack the Ripper’ had claimed his first victim. Dominic Sandbrook is a historian and presenter. This article was first published on History Extra in August 2016

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A big day in history: the first baby is born to English settlers in the Americas
type: item
date: 2018-08-18T07:00:00.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
subject: Tudor exploration
description: Dominic Sandbrook explores how baby Virginia Dare was welcomed to the ill-fated Roanoke colony
encoded: In the summer of 1587, an English fleet sailed towards Roanoke Island, just off the coast of what’s now North Carolina. It was led by John White, a gentleman artist and friend of the Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Ralegh, who had been sent to establish a colony in the New World. Some 114 potential settlers accompanied him, among them his daughter, Eleanor, and her husband, Ananias Dare, a bricklayer from London. On 18 August, in what must have been basic conditions, Eleanor gave birth to a daughter. The girl was christened Virginia, after the English settlement in North America – itself named after Elizabeth I’s sobriquet: the ‘virgin queen’. Virginia was the first child born to white English-speaking parents anywhere in the Americas. Read more: What happened to the lost colony of Roanoke Island? Tudors in America: how England’s New World colonies came into being (subscription) If her grandfather was delighted, his joy did not last. Only nine days after her birth, White sailed for England, hoping to secure supplies and support for his struggling venture. Delayed by storms and Spanish ships, he did not return for three years, landing – with a grim twist – on the date of Virginia’s third birthday. To his horror he found the settlement deserted, with no sign of life. The settlers, including his daughter and granddaughter, had simply disappeared. What happened to the settlers will surely never be known. Yet little Virginia has become a near-legendary figure in the US, celebrated with stamps, coins, bridges and parks. A popular folk myth holds that Virginia was adopted by Native Americans, magically turned into a white doe and then accidentally killed by a hunter. So whenever a white doe is spotted near Roanoke Island, locals maintain that it is the spirit of Virginia Dare. Dominic Sandbrook is a historian and presenter. This article was first published in the August 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine

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Why has Britain decided to leave the EU?
type: item
date: 2018-06-22T14:44:44.000Z
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
subject: European Union
description: On 23 June 2016, Britain voted narrowly in favour of leaving the European Union. In the aftermath of this historic decision, we asked five historians to offer their opinions – about the causes of the Leave victory and what it might mean for the country's future
encoded: The panel Richard Overy is a professor of history at the University of Exeter who specialises in 20th-century international history, especially the Second World War. Dominic Sandbrook is a historian, writer and broadcaster who has presented a number of BBC TV series on postwar Britain, including a forthcoming history of the 1980s. David Abulafiais professor of Mediterranean history at Cambridge University. He is the leader of Historians for Britain, which argued for changes to Britain’s EU membership. Helen McCarthy is a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London who works on modern Britain. She edits the journal Twentieth Century British History. Kathleen Burk is emeritus professor of modern and contemporary history at University College London. Her interests lie in British and Anglo-American history. Were you surprised by the result, and if so, why? Richard Overy: I was not surprised as the result was always a strong possibility given the long history of populist hostility to Europe and the difficulty of finding a popular political language in favour of a European future. The narrow margin was also entirely predictable. Helen McCarthy: I was surprised because I believed the ‘safety first’ argument of the Remain side would resonate in the final days of the campaign and pull undecideds towards Remain. I underestimated the strength of anti-EU sentiment, even in relatively affluent parts of England, such as Essex, Suffolk and Surrey where many stand to lose a great deal in the recession which almost inevitably will follow Brexit. The result confounds the familiar logic of ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ – which has fitted so neatly with the evidence of general elections in recent decades. Do you see the Leave victory as more the result of short or long-term factors? Dominic Sandbrook: Clearly it’s a bit of both. It was close, after all. One very obvious short-term factor, for example, is the fact that Labour had such an extraordinarily unconvincing leader, which no…

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8 historical events that happened in June
type: item
date: 2018-06-01T08:00:57.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Victorian
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
description: From the death of Alexander the Great to Hitler's arrival in Paris, Dominic Sandbrook highlights notable events from history that took place in June
encoded: 5 June 1832: Angry Parisians man the barricades Paris, 1832. In the Tuileries garden, the young writer Victor Hugo was strolling by the river when he heard gunshots: trouble was brewing in the working-class district of Les Halles. Hugo went to investigate. For 15 minutes he hid behind a pillar and watched as the king’s soldiers fired on republican rebels. At last the battle moved away, giving Hugo the chance to make his escape. It was a moment that stayed with him for the rest of his life. Some 13 years later, he began work on a novel set in Paris during those tumultuous June days: Les Misérables. Today, thanks to the success of the musical and film versions, Les Misérables is by far Hugo’s best-known work. Many people assume that it is set during the French Revolution. In fact, the insurrection at its heart was a two-day uprising against the Orleanist king Louis-Philippe, which ended in failure. The June Rebellion was triggered by the food shortages of the late 1820s, a devastating cholera epidemic and the death of the popular general Jean Lamarque, who had become a hero to the working classes of Paris. At his funeral on 5 June, republican demonstrators rallied the crowds, waving red flags and calling for “liberty or death”. The mood turned ugly, and by the evening rioters had taken control of much of central and eastern Paris, throwing up the barricades that play such a key role in Hugo’s novel. It was all for nothing. The army stayed loyal to Louis-Philippe, and by morning the uprising had lost momentum. At the Cloître Saint-Merri, the last demonstrators were surrounded by the king’s troops. By nightfall it was all over. 26 June 1541: Francis Pizarro meets a bloody end over dinner Francisco Pizarro died as he had lived, sword in hand. Pizarro, who had defied the odds to bring down the Incas and conquer modern-day Peru for the Spanish, was almost 70 years old. As governor of New Castile (as Peru was then named), he had spent years locked in a bitter feud with a ri…

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8 remarkable historical events that happened in May
type: item
date: 2017-05-01T04:00:00.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
description: Dominic Sandbrook highlights noteworthy events that took place in May in history... This article was first published in the May 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine
encoded: The torched city burns as thousands of imperial troops pillage Rome on 6 May 1527, as depicted by a 16th or 17th-century Italian artist. (AKG) 4 May 1926: The General Strike fails to paralyse Britain To many people, the first full day of the General Strike on 4 May 1926 represented a turning point in history. After years of mounting tension between employers and unions, particularly in the coal industry, the Trades Union Congress finally ordered its members out. On that first morning, docks, factories and rail yards across the country stood empty and silent. Conservative newspapers warned that this would mark the beginning of a Bolshevik revolution. In Blackburn, one man later remembered, his family “sat in silence in the kitchen, holding their breath, waiting for the revolution to begin”. Across the country, a strange sense of unreality took hold. With public transport having ground to a halt, the roads were packed. “The mill chimneys ceased to smoke and the wheels ceased to turn,” one woman in Manchester wrote afterwards. “The pavement and even the roads were crowded with pedestrians and the drivers of private cars offered lifts with surprising generosity.” Reports of fighting came from the docks, while the government deployed troops to escort food convoys. Yet the widely predicted class warfare failed to materialise, and the General Strike never evolved into a revolutionary uprising. Indeed, compared with turbulence overseas, it turned into a bit of a non-event. By the time it fizzled out nine days later, King George V – who had upbraided his Conservative ministers for their attitude to the strikers (“Try living on their wages before you judge them”) – considered it a tribute to British unity. “Our dear old country can be well proud of itself,” he wrote in his diary. “It shows what a wonderful people we are.” 6 May 1527: The army of the Holy Roman Emperor sacks Rome In the early 16th century, Italy was a dangerous place to live. Torn apart by endless wars between…

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There was more to the 80s than Maggie
type: item
date: 2016-06-10T11:59:44.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
description: The Iron Lady casts a long shadow but the decade she symbolises was shaped by immense forces far beyond her control, says Dominic Sandbrook...
encoded: The eighties. The decade of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the Los Angeles Olympics and the Chernobyl disaster; the decade of Michael Jackson and Madonna; mobile phones and home computers; Solidarity, the Ayatollah Khomeini and Tiananmen Square; the decade the Challenger exploded, the IRA bombed Brighton and the Berlin Wall came down. In Britain we remember the eighties as a uniquely conflicted and controversial decade, when event piled on event with dizzying speed: the years of Heysel and Hillsborough, Steve Davis and Daley Thompson, Duran Duran and Culture Club, Brookside and Blockbusters. In 1980 the economy plunged into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. A year later, Brixton and Toxteth saw the worst urban rioting in living memory. In 1982 Britain sent a task force to reclaim the Falkland Islands from Argentina. In 1984 the miners’ strike ripped communities apart and left scars that have never truly healed. And then, in the second half of the decade, came a succession of enormously controversial changes, from the privatisation of Britain’s utilities to the deregulation of the City of London, that fundamentally reshaped the landscape of our political and economic life, creating shock waves that reverberate to this day. It may have become a cliché of modern historical writing to give individual decades their own flavour, their own personality and their own legacy. But nobody, I think, would deny that the eighties mattered, or that this was a peculiarly distinctive historical moment, charged with tension and possibility. What’s also true, though, is that in Britain at least, the eighties have become identified with one individual above all. As prime minister from 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher cast a shadow over almost every corner of our national life. Whether lampooned on TV sketch shows or lambasted in bestselling pop anthems, she was simply always there, the great she-elephant – as the Tory dissident Julian Critchley famously called her –…

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My favourite place: Dominic Sandbrook
type: item
date: 2015-03-03T10:00:34.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Dominic Sandbrook
subject: Where history happened
description: In the March 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine, Dominic Sandbrook selects Plovdiv in Bulgaria as his favourite historical destination. HistoryExtra caught up with him to find out more...
encoded: Plovdiv (© Eric Nathan/Robert Harding) Q: When did you last travel to Plovdiv and why were you there? I last went to Plovdiv in 2000. I was there on holiday. My friend Simon and I went to Bulgaria for the Koprivshtitsa folk music festival. He went for the music, but I was really there for the kebabs. My wife refuses to go with me now because she is so sick of our Bulgarian holiday anecdotes. Q: Why do you love the location? For me, the magic of Plovdiv, and indeed of Bulgaria generally, is that it feels so natural and unselfconscious. The old town is beautifully preserved, but it doesn’t feel manicured or touristy. It feels a little bit like a backwater, which means that it’s relatively untouched by mass tourism, but in terms of historical sights and sheer atmosphere, it’s just as nice as somewhere in say, Croatia. Q: What top 3 sights would you recommend people visit while they are there, and why? Well, the Old Town has to be top of the list, because you really do feel as if you’ve wandered back into the last years of the Ottoman Empire. And the fantastically preserved Roman theatre, obviously. And as number three I would recommend a day trip to the Bachkovo Monastery, which is fantastically atmospheric. Q: During what period of its history would you most wanted to have visited Plovdiv and why? If nothing else, I think I’d give the Communist years a miss. It would have been fun to have seen the city in the 1880s and 1890s, when it had just rejoined an independent Bulgaria and the National Revival architecture was in its heyday. Q: Where else in the world would you most like to visit and why? I have a weird interest in the Eastern European borderlands, so perhaps some sort of road trip from the former East Prussia down through Poland and western Ukraine to the Black Sea would be great. Crumbling 19th-century architecture and tower blocks and derelict villages and unshaven men lurking vaguely near railway lines, that sort of thing. Perhaps more excitingly, though, I’…

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