HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-24T09:46:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Chevalier D’Eon | A cross-dressing 18th-century CELEBRITY spy?
items: Oliver Cromwell’s postal spies: intercepting letters and codebreaking in the General Post Office
items: Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent who changed the course of the Cold War
items: Noor Inayat Khan: the daring life of the British WW2 ‘spy princess’
items: Chevalièr d’Éon: the tale of an 18th-century gender non-conforming spy
items: The Dreyfus Affair: how France was divided over a miscarriage of justice
items: The Cold War: 9 key questions
items: The secrets and lies of Cold War spies
items: Operation Mincemeat: how a corpse duped Hitler
items: Wiretapping: a secret history

Chevalier D’Eon | A cross-dressing 18th-century CELEBRITY spy?
type: item
date: 2026-02-24T09:45:53.000Z
creator: Ellie Cawthorne
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
description: As a celebrity, spy, diplomat and fencing champion, the Chevalier D’Eon had many extraordinary adventures and took on many identities over the course of their long life
encoded: As a celebrity, spy, diplomat and fencing champion, the Chevalier D’Eon had many extraordinary adventures and took on many identities over the course of their long life. But there was one aspect of their story that fascinated the Georgian public more than any other – the question of whether the Chevalier was a man, or a woman. In this episode of History’s Greatest Scandals, Professor Hannah Greig and Ellie Cawthorne share not just one scandal, but a string of them, as they chart the Chevalier’s swashbuckling escapades. Watch the full episode, or listen ad-free at the link below: View Green Video on the source website

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Oliver Cromwell’s postal spies: intercepting letters and codebreaking in the General Post Office
type: item
date: 2024-08-16T09:00:16.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Espionage
subject: Letters
description: Oliver Cromwell was England's Lord Protector, but his enemies were out there and plotting through clandestine or coded letters. Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman tell the story of the intelligence-gathering unit Cromwell created, the first in England, which deployed an array of cunning tricks to intercept and decode enemy communications
encoded: A month before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the Government Code and Cypher School moved into Bletchley Park, a stately home and estate in Buckinghamshire. There, it established a centre dedicated to intercepting and decoding enemy communications, playing a pivotal role in the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. But this was not the first time an operation dedicated to the interception and decoding of messages had been set up in England. Indeed, in 1655 – nearly three centuries earlier – a smaller, but remarkably similar operation had been established on the orders of England’s Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. It was christened the General Post Office. Early intelligence gathering Until the 1640s, intelligence gathering in the British Isles was a matter of individual spies reporting to their own spy chiefs – men such as Sir Francis Walsingham, the Earl of Essex, and William Cecil and his son Robert. As rivals competing for the favour of their monarch, cooperation was not their first instinct. Operations tended to be limited to the infiltration of groups that might harbour potential enemies, but also the occasional interception of letters exchanged between known or suspected conspirators. And that was often a tricky task. Before any agent could attempt to read a message contained within a letter – which might be protected through ciphers, codes or invisible inks – they had to open it, preferably without damaging it. Long before the invention of gummed envelopes, letters were as intricate as origami birds. The paper on which the message was written was folded into its own letter-packet. Security devices included wax seals and ‘locks’ – pieces of paper threaded through the letter-packet that would rip upon opening, betraying the fact that the letter had been compromised. Great skill was required to deal with these anti-tamper devices; that might mean mending the damage caused by opening a letter or, when that was impossible, counterfeiting all or part of …

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Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent who changed the course of the Cold War
type: item
date: 2024-05-09T09:29:49.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: 20th Century
subject: Cold War
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
subject: Historical people
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: As BBC Two’s documentary series Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game tracks the spies operating behind the scenes in the Reagan era, Jonathan Wright takes a closer look at the remarkable dual life of the double agent that changed global policy, and lived to defect and tell his secret-filled tale
encoded: In the early 1980s, Oleg Gordievsky was arguably the most important spy in the world. This was not primarily because of his work for what was ostensibly his employer, the KGB, but because he was a double agent for MI6. For over a decade, he leaked Russian secrets that would inform international policy in both London and Washington. His is an extraordinary story, now outlined in a documentary series on BBC Two, Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game, which looks at how espionage shaped the end of the Cold War. More than that, it may well have helped save the world from Armageddon at a time when the USSR and the United States possessed, respectively, 33,000 and 22,000 nuclear warheads. Who is Oleg Gordievsky and why does he matter? Now in his 80s and living, it’s said, somewhere in the south of England, Gordievsky was a career KGB spy who rose to become bureau chief in London in the early 1980s. Yet by then, he was also committed to passing information to British secret intelligence, fuelled by a disillusionment in the system he was serving. “I hated the communist system, I wanted to fight against it,” he says in an archive recording, which features in the new documentary. While we now know the Cold War was winding down, that’s not how it would have felt to those living through that time, with aggressive rhetoric coming from both sides and when it seemed that one misstep might have led to nuclear calamity. Gordievsky’s insights proved to be invaluable to the British and their US allies as they tried to manage relations with the Soviet bloc. How did Gordievsky come to occupy such an important position? To take the long view, espionage was a family business. Born in Moscow in 1938, Gordievsky was the son of an agent in the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD, the Soviet secret police and the forerunner of the KGB. His older brother would also serve in the KGB. Read more | Stanislav Petrov: the Soviet who saved the world A talented student with a knack for langu…

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Noor Inayat Khan: the daring life of the British WW2 ‘spy princess’
type: item
date: 2024-02-06T16:42:37.000Z
creator: Rhiannon Davies
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Espionage
subject: Evergreen
description: The first female wireless operator to be sent behind enemy lines during the Second World War, Noor Inayat Khan's tale is one of courage and tragedy. Rhiannon Davies explores her story
encoded: Who was Noor Inayat Khan? Noor Inayat Khan made history as the first female wireless operator to be sent behind enemy lines in France during the Second World War. Working for Britain’s clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE), she was sent to Paris in the summer of 1943 to support the Parisian resistance network, Prosper. However, the Gestapo had already infiltrated Prosper, and not long after Noor’s arrival the network collapsed. Despite London urging her to return home, Khan remained in enemy territory, determined to keep communicating with Britain – but the Gestapo were closing in. The Nazis finally captured her in October 1943, and managed to impersonate her to trick SOE into sending further waves of agents into their traps. After her arrest, Noor was imprisoned for almost a year in increasingly squalid conditions, until she was sent to Dachau concentration camp in September 1944 and executed. Was Noor Inayat Khan a princess? Khan was born on 1 January 1914 in Moscow, and was descended from Indian royalty. Her father – a Sufi teacher called Hazrat Inayat Khan – was related to Tipu Sultan, the famed 17th-century ruler of Mysore in southern India. Khan’s mother, Ora Ray Baker (who changed her name to Amina Begum after marriage), was an American poet. “Khan had a pretty idyllic childhood,” says historian Kate Vigurs, who was speaking to us about Noor Inayat Khan for our Life of the Week podcast series. “She had a very loving family, and was surrounded by philosophy, music and religious teachings”. During Khan’s formative years the family lived in London, but then they relocated to France in 1920. “I believe things were a little difficult to Khan at first, because she and her family only spoke English, but she was a very intelligent child and quickly picked up the language,” says Vigurs. However, Khan’s idyllic childhood was fractured in 1927 when her father tragically died. “A few months after his death, she went to visit the family home in India – this is th…

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Chevalièr d’Éon: the tale of an 18th-century gender non-conforming spy
type: item
date: 2023-08-09T05:03:44.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
subject: Historical people
description: What happens when a spy becomes the subject of other people’s investigations? Nige Tassell delves into the life of the Chevalier d’Éon – the French master of disguise who defied conventional notions of gender
encoded: After decades of speculation, gossip and even gambling on the matter, in 1810 it was an elderly Londoner called Mrs Cole who finally discovered the truth. For the previous 14 years, this widow had shared an apartment with a French spinster, the Chevalière d’Éon. During the last few of those years, the chevalière – the female equivalent of a chevalier, or knight – was largely bedbound. Both women were in their early eighties; both also lived in poverty and suffered poor health. Now, on 21 May 1810, at the age of 81, the Frenchwoman was dead. Unsurprisingly, it was Mrs Cole who found the body. Mourning the passing of her friend and flatmate, she solemnly began to prepare the corpse to receive visitors, aiming to provide some dignity in death. As she changed the deceased’s clothes, Mrs Cole made a startling revelation: the chevalière was very much in possession of male genitalia. The French flatmate had told a convincing tale: that they had been born female but – due to social restrictions of the time – had been raised as a boy. As an adult, they had fought as a soldier, and had been free to revert to ‘her’ biological sex only after retiring from public life. Now it appeared that the opposite had been true. This was the final twist in an action-packed life. Mrs Cole sought a second opinion – a dozen opinions, actually, including those of surgeons and professors of anatomy who visited the property. Yes, her friend had narrow, feminine hips and an unobtrusive Adam’s apple, but all of these experts came to the same conclusion: that the chevalière had actually been a chevalier all along. Who was the Chevalièr d’Éon? Charles-Genèvieve-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont had been born in 1728 in the small Burgundy town of Tonnerre. His was a noble family, albeit a comparatively poor one. After a childhood of little note, he followed his attorney father into legal training, graduating in both civil law and canon law in Paris before taking on positions within the ci…

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The Dreyfus Affair: how France was divided over a miscarriage of justice
type: item
date: 2022-12-22T08:44:18.000Z
creator: Danny Bird
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
subject: Historical people
description: In 1894, a French artillery officer named Alfred Dreyfus was found guilty of treason after it was revealed he passed military secrets to Germany. Except, he was innocent; the victim of anti-Semitism. Danny Bird explores the years-long scandal that erupted and the fight to clear Dreyfus's name
encoded: On 22 December 1894, after a four-day trial at the Cherche-Midi prison in Paris, seven judges unanimously convicted Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery officer, of collusion with a foreign power. Born in Mulhouse, Alsace, Dreyfus was a patriotic and independently wealthy soldier of Jewish heritage. He was sentenced to the harshest penalty under French law: permanent exile in a walled fortification. The discovery, three months earlier, of a ripped-up, handwritten note – the bordereau – in a wastebasket by a French intelligence agent operating inside the German Embassy, had shocked the nation. Ever since Germany’s annexation of France’s easternmost regions, Alsace and Lorraine, in 1871, there had been deep mistrust between Paris and Berlin. The note, addressed to the German military attaché, served to validate this paranoia. Its contents divulged information on changes to French artillery regulations, the outcome of a weapons test, and plans to conquer Madagascar. Suspicion pointed to a spy on France’s general staff, with Dreyfus soon identified as the culprit. His upbringing in a part of France long exposed to Germanic influences, as well as his Jewish ancestry, singled him out as an anomaly in a military culture rife with anti-Semitism and hungry to avenge the defeat of 1871. Exile and conspiracy Two weeks after his conviction, on 5 January 1895, Dreyfus was subjected to a humiliating “degradation” on the courtyard of the École Militaire. His sword was snapped across the knee of a towering warrant officer, and his epaulettes and stripes were unceremoniously torn from his uniform. Baying crowds screamed “Judas!” and “Death to the Jews!”, but Dreyfus remained stoic throughout the ordeal, exclaiming: “Innocent! Innocent! Vive la France! Long live the Army!” before being marched off. That April, he arrived on Devil’s Island, a former leper colony off French Guiana, to begin his sentence. There, he endured appalling mistreatment. Imprisoned within a purpose-built stone hut meas…

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The Cold War: 9 key questions
type: item
date: 2022-08-16T15:06:47.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Cold War
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
description: Professor Michael Goodman answers key questions about the decades-long rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union
encoded: What was the Cold War and why do we refer to it as such? To put it simply, the Cold War was a political, ideological and economic conflict that broke out in the years after the Second World War and lasted up until 1991. The two main protagonists were the United States and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies (the western and eastern blocs). Of course, it was much more complex than that. Read more | The CIA’s most unlikely Cold War weapon? A secret smuggling operation that terrified Soviet censors As to the name: a war will turn ‘hot’ when it involves open fighting, whereas a ‘cold war’ is a battle of ideology. The Cold War of the second half of the 20th century did, in various instances, become a physical conflict as there were lots of wars by proxy, such as in Korea and Vietnam. But fundamentally it remained peaceful and certainly was not what the two world wars had been. What were the ideologies of the two opposing sides? The United States, and its chief ally Britain, were capitalist and democratic countries, while the Soviet Union was a communist state – the first significant communist country to come out of the First World War. The Soviet ideal was an internal system for making life more equitable and level, but more broadly there was a belief that if communism was to succeed then the Russians would have to export that mentality to other countries around the world. So, in the interwar years – particularly after Joseph Stalin came to power – the idea of a global communist revolution took hold. This was strongly opposed by the west, but the two sides would become allies in the Second World War. In the aftermath of the war, Soviet expansion took on a renewed vigour and became more overt: not just in a political-ideological way, but increasingly in a military way, too. The east and west became embroiled in a battle for ideas, for people, for land and for territory. And later, this battle would become characterised by the threat of nuclear war. Read m…

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The secrets and lies of Cold War spies
type: item
date: 2022-05-10T14:30:29.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Cold War
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
subject: Historical people
description: They engaged in thrilling adventures in a shadowy world. But who were the spies who operated during the Cold War and what were they up to? Professor Michael Goodman steps into a realm of suspicion and sedition to explore why some people turned traitor
encoded: Cold War Moscow was a place like no other. The eyes and ears of the Soviet secret police, the KGB, were everywhere; the only place that was really safe, one political prisoner would later write, was in your dreams. It was a place where life and death existed side by side, as did opportunity and imprisonment. To betray the state was to risk everything, yet on one cold and snowy evening in February 1978 that was precisely the choice one individual made. As Gus Hathaway drove from the US Embassy to his residence he stopped for petrol. He was coming out of the petrol station when there was a tap on his car window. A Russian. Hathaway was one of the original breed of the CIA, recruited at the start of the Cold War, part of a cadre who spent their careers hidden in the shadows fighting cat-and-mouse battles with their Russian counterparts. Hathaway had been appointed as CIA Moscow station chief at a crucial time in the espionage confrontation between East and West: the CIA had lost a number of significant agents, and those back in Washington had decreed that no new agents were to be recruited until the losses could be explained. Read more | Spying in WW2: how wartime espionage was just as dramatic as fiction But Hathaway knew better than to reject an overt gesture from the ‘main enemy’. This was neither the first nor the last approach the Russian made, but eventually he was able to make contact and Hathaway secured support to recruit him. The result was more than Hathaway could have hoped for. The Russian, Adolf Tolkachev, was a disgruntled engineer and over the next seven years he provided document after document, sharing a wealth of intelligence and saving the US defence establishment so much money that he earned the nickname the ‘Billion Dollar Spy’. From his first interactions with the CIA, Tolkachev would have been made aware of the dangers he faced. He had to be tightly controlled by the CIA with his information very carefully concealed so that only select individua…

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Operation Mincemeat: how a corpse duped Hitler
type: item
date: 2022-04-14T12:35:54.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Espionage
subject: TV interest
description: As the Allies plotted to invade Sicily in 1943, two British intelligence officers concocted an elaborate deception operation involving a corpse, a submarine, and a briefcase stuffed with documents. What followed would alter the course of WW2 – and save thousands of lives. Jonny Wilkes reveals how the events unfolded
encoded: Adolf Clauss and Karl-Erich Kühlenthal could not believe the stroke of luck that had come their way. After a nervy few days of back and forth with the Spanish authorities, the agents – members of Germany’s military intelligence service, the Abwehr – had got their hands on a piece of information that could change the course of WW2: a top-secret letter between two British generals. It had been discovered, on 30 April 1943, among the possessions of a dead Royal Marine floating off the coast; the victim of a plane crash who must have been in the water for some time until a local fisherman spotted his remains. The letter hinted at the planned Allied invasion of Greece and Sardinia in the next few months. With this, the Germans could halt the enemy’s attempts to get a foothold in Europe before it got going. The Abwehr put a copy of the letter on Hitler’s desk, and he quickly ordered infantry and panzer divisions, fighter squadrons, artillery and torpedo boats to defend Greece, Sardinia and the Balkans. Now, the invasion was doomed to fail – all thanks to the chance find of a dead British officer. Meanwhile in London, in a dim, smoky and cramped basement room of the Admiralty, the men and women of Section 17M banged the tables and jumped up and down in celebration when they heard of the Germans’ preparations. And put in front of Winston Churchill was a telegram: “Mincemeat swallowed rod, line and sinker.” What was Operation Mincemeat? Adolf Hitler had been duped. The body was not Captain (Acting Major) William Martin of the Royal Marines, but a homeless man called Glyndwr Michael; the personal papers, keys, cigarettes, stamps, theatre tickets and loving mementoes from a fiancée in his pockets had been fabricated and planted; the fisherman found the body exactly where the British carefully planned it to be so that the Germans would know about it; and the top-secret letter was a hoax. The whole thing was a brilliant, elaborate and macabre deception – codenamed Operation Minc…

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Wiretapping: a secret history
type: item
date: 2022-04-08T11:19:24.000Z
creator: Rhiannon Davies
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Espionage
description: Brian Hochman reveals how wiretapping has been part of American life for centuries, used by criminals and law enforcement alike
encoded: Wiretapping has a chequered past in the United States, from civil war soldiers who were seen as heroes for tapping enemy wires to the political scandals that rocked the 20th-century establishment. Brian Hochman, the author of The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States tells Rhiannon Davies about the history of electronic eavesdropping. Brian Hochman is the author of The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States (Harvard University Press, 2022) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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