HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-03-04T17:17:16.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: "It was the greatest act of violence for 66 million years": why the modern world was born of bloodshed
items: The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
items: Sex, slavery and royal scandal: how Jane Austen's novels exposed a darker side of Georgian Britain
items: Nelson: a life of heroism and scandal
items: Regency Masterclass, with Dr Lizzie Rogers
items: Regency quiz – week four
items: Regency Britain: an age of war and revolution
items: Reading between the lines: the real-life events that inspired Jane Austen
items: 1816: the year without summer
items: Becoming Jane Austen

"It was the greatest act of violence for 66 million years": why the modern world was born of bloodshed
type: item
date: 2026-02-25T15:30:07.000Z
subject: Industrial revolution
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Death
subject: Georgian
subject: Historical events
subject: Murder
subject: Slavery
description: In the 18th century, developments in finance, weapons and industry converged to create a modern economy born of bloodshed. Clifton Crais explores how killing powered the industrial age
encoded: Imagine you’re in Nebraska, standing on North America’s Great Plains, where the broad Platte and Missouri rivers join on their way to the mighty Mississippi. It’s 1804, and in the blistering 36°C heat of summer you’re accompanying Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark as they head west towards the Pacific Ocean, exploring the commercial possibilities of this vast new country. Stretching away in front of you is a sea of chocolate-brown: thousands of animals, each standing as high as a man and weighing upwards of 900kg. Now picture putrefying carcasses and heaps of bleached bones extending as far as the eye can see. “The bones were everywhere,” homesteaders complained, “as thick as cones under a big fir tree”, and so numerous that it was impossible to plough the land. That was mere decades after Lewis and Clark’s fabled expedition. By the end of the 19th century, America’s population of bison had been reduced from tens of millions to around 350. Much of this killing unfolded over the course of just a few years – one of the most concentrated acts of ecological destruction in history. The usual explanation for the slaughter of the American bison ties it to the government’s decision to solve its ‘Indian problem’ – kill the bison and you destroy the Indigenous peoples’ food supply. “Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone,” wrote Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, who had fought in the Civil War before heading west to subdue the Native American population. But politics didn’t kill the bison. Economics did. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-515301392webready-0494d00-e1771951017974.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph showing large piles of bison hides piled up after many animals have been killed for their skins" title="Thousands of bison hides lie in huge piles in Dodge City, Kansas, 1878. Advances in chemistry enabled hides to be processed and used in belts in industrial mac…

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The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T15:30:45.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Georgian
subject: Historical people
subject: Royal children
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The royal family
description: At a time when the royal family is under significant strain, historians shine a spotlight on some of the biggest crises to have enveloped the British monarchy over the past three centuries
encoded: The prince, the brothel and a culture war Katie Hindmarch-Watson describes a sex scandal that consumed Queen Victoria’s grandson On 7 July 1889, a policeman arrested a sometime telegraph boy, Henry Newlove, at his mother’s house in Camden Town. Newlove had been recruiting younger telegraph boys at London’s Central Telegraph Office to provide sexual services for affluent male clients at a brothel on Cleveland Street. Defiant, Newlove said that he thought it “very hard that I should get into trouble while men in high position are allowed to walk around free… Why, Lord Arthur Somerset goes regularly to the house at Cleveland Street; so does the Earl of Euston and Colonel Jervois.” Within months, Newlove was in prison and Somerset was in exile. Yet Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston, triumphed in a libel suit that exonerated him from any “gross indecency”, and Colonel Jervois received no further mention in police records or the press. However, another man in high position became the focus of speculation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL11686324webready-dfc0737-e1770036564257.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A newspaper depicting several scenes of men in top hats and young boys standing in the street" title="The Cleveland Street Scandal, as reported in The Illustrated Police News on 25 January 1890. The affair – which embroiled Prince Albert Victor – “evolved into a morality tale about rich men’s predatory vices” (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> We still don’t really know why Prince Albert Victor – or ‘Eddy’, grandson of Queen Victoria and oldest son of the Prince of Wales – became linked to the story. Arthur Somerset had been his father’s equerry, but there is no evidence that the two men associated with one another, and no proof has emerged one way or another about Eddy’s propensity for sex with teenage telegraph boys. The Cleveland Street Scandal evolved from Newlove’s revelations into a morality tale about rich men’s pred…

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Sex, slavery and royal scandal: how Jane Austen's novels exposed a darker side of Georgian Britain
type: item
date: 2025-12-22T16:00:46.000Z
creator: Dr Lizzie Rogers
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Georgian
subject: Historical people
description: The author's books depict an evocative slice of early 19th-century life, but many aspects of the Regency era are only hinted at in her novels, as Lizzie Rogers reveals
encoded: Ever felt like you could be Elizabeth Bennet? You’re not alone. Entering Jane Austen’s world can feel like an immersive experience. Reading her books (or watching television or film adaptations, or the many spin-offs and lookalikes), it’s easy to believe that somehow we’ve really got to know her England – and, by extension, the people who lived in it. That feeling is encapsulated in the 2008 ITV series Lost in Austen, which follows the adventures of 21st-century heroine Amanda Price. Stepping through a portal into the world of Pride and Prejudice, Price (played by Jemima Rooper) finds herself in the bosom of the Bennet family, messing up episodes in the novel, trying – with varying degrees of success – to fix them and, inevitably, falling in love with Mr Darcy (Elliot Cowan). Her opening voiceover declares that “I’ve read [Pride and Prejudice] so many times now the words just say themselves in my head and it’s like a window opening. It’s like I’m actually there – it’s become a place I know so intimately… I can see that world, I can touch it.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/shutterstockeditorial912719bewebready-5e6f127-e1765974181648.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph of a modern-day adaptation of a Regency ball. A couple dance in the middle, with the man spinning the woman around. Around them, several other couples dance" title="A scene from ITV’s Lost in Austen, where 21st-century heroine Amanda Price steps into Pride and Prejudice, which she describes as “a place I know so intimately” (Image by Shutterstock)" /> This is far from a new sentiment. In March 1826, after reading Pride and Prejudice for the third time, the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott wrote in his journal that Austen “had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with… the exquisite touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters intere…

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Nelson: a life of heroism and scandal
type: item
date: 2024-11-15T07:00:03.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Dominic Sandbrook revisits the life of the naval hero who led the British fleet to victory at Trafalgar, but whose torrid affair scandalised Georgian society
encoded: Nelson is one of the most well-known historical figures from British history. His leadership of the British fleet to victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and his death in the same battle, rendered him a national hero for generations. However, Nelson was also embroiled in a huge scandal during his lifetime, due his passionate affair with Lady Emma Hamilton, and recently questions have been raised about his attitude towards slavery and the slave trade. Historian and co-host of The Rest is History podcast, Dominic Sandbrook has written a book for children about the life of Nelson as part of his Adventures in Time series. Here, he discusses the complexities of the man, and the challenges of writing history for young people, with David Musgrove. (Ad) Dominic Sandbrook is the author of Nelson: Hero of the Seas (Particular Books, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon

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Regency Masterclass, with Dr Lizzie Rogers
type: item
date: 2024-02-09T23:55:50.000Z
creator: Charlotte Hodgman
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Regency Course
description: Dr Lizzie Rogers and Charlotte Hodgman explore some of the key learnings from the recent HistoryExtra Academy Regency course
encoded: View Green Video on the source website

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Regency quiz – week four
type: item
date: 2024-01-28T21:43:41.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Quiz
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Regency Course
description: How much have you learned about the Regency so far? Test your knowledge of your learnings in week four with our quiz
encoded: View Riddle on the source website Explore more content from week four of our Regency course: Slavery and Abolition, with Dr Lizzie Rogers – watching time 12 mins The children who fought for the abolition of slavery – reading time 10 mins The Haitian Revolution: the enslaved Africans who rose up against France – reading time 8 mins Did George III support the slave trade? – reading time 7 mins African American abolitionists in Britain – listening time 43 mins 9 key places connected to the abolition of the British slave trade – reading time 13 mins The Zong Massacre: what the dark episode meant for the British slave trade and abolition – reading time 8 mins David Olusoga on the extraordinary story of Olaudah Equiano - reading time 10 mins

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Regency Britain: an age of war and revolution
type: item
date: 2024-01-19T18:13:55.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Regency Course
description: Jane Austen’s lifetime coincided with near-constant conflict and bloodshed on both sides of the Atlantic
encoded: The American Revolutionary War (1775–83) Born eight months after the outbreak of the American Revolution, Jane Austen entered a world on the brink of seismic change. Although the conflict that ended with the independence of 13 North American colonies from British rule did not affect her directly, its geopolitical legacy shaped the world in which she came of age. During the 1760s and 1770s, colonists in North America grew increasingly frustrated with taxation by Britain, and by its legislative supremacy over their lives. In 1773, the Tea Act effectively gave the East India Company a monopoly on importing tea to America – and levied taxes on that tea, payable to the British Government. In response, colonists disguised as Mohawk Native Americans boarded British ships and dumped an entire shipment of tea into Boston Harbour – a protest known as the Boston Tea Party. Westminster responded by passing the Intolerable Acts, ending local self- government and commerce in Boston. Tensions boiled over in April 1775, when British troops in Massachusetts attempted to confiscate weapons in Lexington and Concord. When they met resisting local militia, the “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired – marking the start of the Revolutionary War. The following year, on 4 July 1776, delegates from 13 colonies assembled in Philadelphia declared their independence and established the United States of America. Over the next five years, on battlefields from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, the colonists – led by figures including George Washington – fought for liberty and self-governance. And, with support from France and other European powers, the tide turned in their favour. Signing the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain formally recognised the US as an independent nation, ending the conflict. But the ideals championed in that war opened the era of the Atlantic Revolutions. The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) On 22 August 1791, the French colony of Saint- Domingue, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola…

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Reading between the lines: the real-life events that inspired Jane Austen
type: item
date: 2024-01-19T18:13:04.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Regency Course
description: Beneath the genteel surface of decorous society, unrest simmered in the world – and works – of Jane Austen
encoded: While the novels of Jane Austen might suggest an endless schedule of middle- and upper-class gaiety, disgruntlement was rumbling beneath the surface across the country – and, during this tail end of the Georgian era, it often erupted in violent, sometimes lethal protest. Not that Austen herself completely ignored what was happening in the country beyond Barton Cottage and Netherfield Park. For instance, her fifth novel, Northanger Abbey, refers to the unrest erupting in England’s larger cities. Although she writes about a riot as imagined by one of the characters, the rather visceral description depicts: “a mob of three thousand men assembling in St George’s Fields, the Bank attacked, the Tower threatened, the streets of London flowing with blood”. Whether real or imagined, Austen’s inspiration for this tableau does seem to have come from real-life events. The episode appears to be a conflation of at least two separate disturbances that occurred prior to Northanger Abbey’s publication. In 1808, perhaps 6,000 weavers from the local – and rapidly growing – textile industry in Manchester gathered in St George’s Fields to protest about the lack of a minimum wage in their trade. Eight years later, not long before Austen’s novel was published, another riot broke out in London at the end of a hitherto peaceful protest. During the violence, the rioters even planned to attack the Tower of London – so it was surely not mere coincidence that Austen’s imagined account of the unrest included the Tower being “threatened”. Fighting for fair pay The weavers’ protest in Manchester may have been violent but it did achieve a modicum of success. Though dragoons were called in to restore peace (and one protester died during this response), the rioting was replicated in surrounding towns in Lancashire, and the weavers won a small concession in the form of a modest rise in their wages. Some scholars of Jane Austen believe that the Gordon Riots of 1780 also contributed to her description i…

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1816: the year without summer
type: item
date: 2024-01-18T11:04:23.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Georgian
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Regency Course
description: Two centuries ago, Britons had to endure biting cold and driving rain from April to August. They blamed everyone from Napoleon to Benjamin Franklin for the filthy weather but, says Robert Hume, the real culprit was far more remote
encoded: Lake Geneva, 1 June 1816. An "almost perpetual rain" confined the small group of writers to the house. The night was stormy. In the mountains lightning flashed from peak to peak. In a letter to her half sister, Mary Shelley wrote: The lake was lit up, the pines on Jura made visible, and all the scene illuminated for an instant, when a pitchy blackness succeeded, and the thunder came in frightful bursts over our heads amid the darkness." Shelley was not the only famous writer to complain about the weather in the summer of 1816. "Oh! It rains again," lamented Jane Austen from her home in Chawton, Hampshire, on 9 July. “Such weather gives one little temptation to be out. It is really too bad, & has been for a long time, much worse than anybody can bear, & I begin to think it will never be fine again.” The painter JMW Turner captured driving rain and red-tinged clouds in his painting Lancaster Sands, while Shelley drew inspiration from that “wet, ungenial summer” to write her classic novel, Frankenstein. Shelley, Austen and Turner’s words and watercolour provide a glimpse of an extraordinary summer, unlike anything anyone could remember. People across the northern hemisphere shivered and sought shelter as, for month after month, they were assailed by freezing temperatures and relentless rain. Ireland suffered no less than eight weeks of precipitation. Nationalist politician Daniel O’Connell grumbled about the “dreadful weather... There is nothing but rain and wretchedness.” Travellers felt the full brunt of these pelting rains. In France, Lady Caroline Capel was drenched to the skin from “the torrents of rain that here follow every day”, while in Switzerland it bucketed down on 130 out of 152 days between April and August. It was also extremely cold. Ice four inches thick was recorded in Essex at the end of August. Visiting London, John Quincy Adams was astonished to find fires lit in almost every house. “There has not been one night when a coverlet and blanket could ha…

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Becoming Jane Austen
type: item
date: 2024-01-14T23:02:40.000Z
creator: Jonathan Wright
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: HistoryExtra Academy Regency Course
description: At first glance, Jane Austen’s life seems to have been uneventful – but those initial appearances are somewhat deceptive
encoded: On 16 December 1816, her 41st birthday, Jane Austen wrote a letter to her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh. Edward, as he was known, had recently gone to study at Oxford. Perhaps gently poking fun at Edward, a budding novelist, she wrote of his “strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of variety and Glow”. Discussing her own work, she asked modestly: “How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much Labour?”Austen was comparing herself to a miniraturist, painting tiny portraits. The letter, held at the British Library, is one of about 160 by Jane Austen to have survived. It is significant because it’s rare and, more subtly, because it seems to confirm what we think we know about Austen. Here is the spinster chronicler of the domestic, a writer who famously saw no need to directly reference the Napoleonic Wars (1803– 15) in her fiction. Yet this sketch, suggesting someone living a modest life, is at best only a partial picture. In her own lifetime, Austen was a successful novelist. Although she never married, she was part of a large family. In A Memoir of Jane Austen (1869), Edward describes her as “the delight of all her nephews and nieces”. She was also someone whose place in society – essentially that of the poor relation – meant that she observed the English landed gentry up close without the sense of security and status enjoyed by those who inherited or married money. Cultural capital Jane was born in 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, where her father, George (1731–1805), was the rector. Though the Reverend Austen’s family had made money as wool merchants, George’s branch weren’t well off. In 1764, he married Cassandra Leigh (1739–1827), whose father was a fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1768 until the turn of the century, the Austens lived in Steventon’s rectory. Jane had six brothers and a beloved older sister, Cassandra (1773–1845). George supplemen…

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