HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-01-15T15:46:37.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Is The Six Triple Eight a true story? The real WW2 history, as told by the movie’s historical consultant
items: Reading the runes: what we can learn about everyday life in the Viking Age
items: Oliver Cromwell’s postal spies: intercepting letters and codebreaking in the General Post Office
items: How to write a love letter: 6 tips from the historical figures who did it best
items: In their own words: 6 of history’s most fascinating letters
items: The letters that reveal Horatio Nelson’s secrets
items: Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in their own words: 5 fascinating letters from Tudor monarchs
items: "If I don't come home": letters from a D-Day captain
items: Books interview with Michael Broers: "You don't have to make up myths about Napoleon's youth – just look at his letters to see evidence that he was a great leader"

Is The Six Triple Eight a true story? The real WW2 history, as told by the movie’s historical consultant
type: item
date: 2024-12-20T16:30:15.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Letters
subject: Soldiers
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Netflix’s historical film The Six Triple Eight tells the story of the all-woman, predominately-Black 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in the Second World War. Molly Sampson, one of the film’s historical consultants, describes the true history seen on screen
encoded: How did one battalion almost-entirely staffed by Black women solve a crisis that affected the morale of millions of US servicemen during WW2? Netflix’s The Six Triple Eight is the story of a WW2 group, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the first and only Women’s Army Corps (WAC) unit of colour to serve overseas in the Second World War. Written and directed by Tyler Perry, the film stars Kerry Washington as Major Charity Adams, the commanding officer of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Despite facing racism and sexism – and gruelling working conditions – they were committed to serving their country with honour and distinction. Molly Sampson, a historical consultant on the film, spoke to HistoryExtra about these unsung heroes who were united in their determination, and in doing so they delivered hope and shattered barriers. Is The Six Triple Eight, based on a true story? Yes, though some details have been adapted for the screen, The Six Triple Eight is based on a true story. It tells the tale of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a ground-breaking unit of 855 women who volunteered to serve their country during the Second World War. The movie highlights their extraordinary mission: clearing a staggering backlog of undelivered mail for US troops stationed in Europe. It also addresses the systemic racism and sexism they faced, as well as their resilience and unity in overcoming these challenges. During the Second World War, US military policies and societal norms enforced rigid racial classifications, shaping the experiences of service members. Women of Latinx heritage serving in the WAC were often required to choose between identifying as Black – thereby being placed in segregated units – or White. Lydia Thornton, a member of the Six Triple Eight and of Afro-Mexican descent, faced this decision during her enlistment. She chose to serve under the strict rules of segregation, a testament to the complex interplay of race, identity, an…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/12/6888Day13202302141908r-f7f9aab-e1734710694440.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

Reading the runes: what we can learn about everyday life in the Viking Age
type: item
date: 2024-10-15T16:26:41.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Viking
subject: Historical people
subject: Letters
subject: Poetry
subject: Viking life and culture
description: Runes – those instantly recognisable characters inscribed on stone, wood and bone – are filled with mystery, but can reveal little-known aspects of everyday Viking life. Eleanor Barraclough deciphers runes that recount tales of love, lust, travel and tragedy from a millennium ago
encoded: The Vikings are best known for their bloody raids, bawdy gods and buried ships. But they are also famous for the runes – the Nordic branch of the spiky north Germanic alphabet still so familiar today. Though Viking Age culture was largely non-literate, runes were the chief exception, lying at the intersection between text and object. In the same way that the word ‘alphabet’ is derived by combining the Greek letters ⍺ (alpha) and β (beta), the Nordic equivalent, ‘futhark’, is derived from the first six letters of the writing system: ᚠ (f), ᚢ (u), ᚦ (th), ᚬ (a), ᚱ (r), ᚴ (k). Surprisingly, because they represent such a recognisable and well-known form of ancient writing, no one knows for certain where runes came from. It’s probably no coincidence that many of the oldest interpretable runic inscriptions discovered – dating from the second century AD – were found in a context that shows evidence of contact with the Roman empire. The shape of runic characters are similar to many letters of the Latin alphabet, but with an angular shape more suited for carving into hard materials such as wood, bone and stone. It’s likely that knowledge of the Roman writing system travelled north with people who had spent time on both sides of the imperial frontier along the Rhine, whether as mercenaries, traders or craftspeople. Want to know more about the Vikings? Professor Ryan Lavelle leads our four-week HistoryExtra Academy Vikings course, available to HistoryExtra subscribers This might also explain one possible meaning of the word ‘rune’ itself: something secret or hidden, originally reserved for a particular segment of society – an elite group. As the centuries passed, though, knowledge and use of runes spanned an ever-broader proportion of society. The Viking Age is typically considered to encompass roughly the years 750–1100 AD – the period during which people of Scandinavian origins and heritage took part in overseas raiding, trading and settlement. At its height, the Norse diasp…

GettyImages-471065417-CMYK-73682f5.jpg
width: 5906
height: 3937

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 …

GettyImages-96888154-3ed1a17-e1673452527881.jpg
width: 619
height: 413

How to write a love letter: 6 tips from the historical figures who did it best
type: item
date: 2023-02-10T09:22:08.000Z
creator: Lauren Good
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
subject: Letters
description: From Zelda Fitzgerald’s poetic professions to Prince Albert’s “promises of unchanging love and devotion”, find inspiration for a love letter that will warrant its own place in the history books…
encoded: When it comes to professing the heart’s most secret desires, there are few more traditional ways of expressing passion than the love letter. Much like the nature of love itself, the love letter's origins are murky indeed. There are references to amorous missives stretching back through the centuries, from the 5,000-year-old Bhagavatha Purana of Indian literature, through to an 8th-century BC Babylonian inscription and a poem on a c3,500 BC Sumerian tablet. One of the best known is arguably the Song of Solomon, regarded as the most romantic book in the Bible with its soft, sensual language. Read more | In their own words: 6 of history’s most fascinating letters What we can say for certain, is that from these early examples sprang a written art which has been treasured for centuries since. In a world transformed by the digital age, writing a letter to a loved one has never been quite so romantic. With that in mind, here is some inspiration to help you from figures in history, so you can craft a love letter that will warrant its own place in the history books… How to begin a love letter How do I love thee? Let me… Wait, what if I can’t count the ways? Struggling to begin your love letter? The predicament of loving someone so much that you can’t describe it is summarised no better than in Jane Austen’s Emma. “If I loved you less,” Mr Knightley professes to the eponymous character, “I might be able to talk about it more.” On the podcast | Historical literature podcast episodes This issue transcends fiction. It’s even been experienced by a US President – George Herbert Walker Bush. Whilst stationed overseas as a Navy pilot during the Second World War, he wrote many letters to his wife-to-be, Barbara. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/02/GettyImages-949564632-468c1c9-e1675869011813.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="US President George HW Bush and Lady Barbara Bush on the South Lawn of the White House, Washington DC, October 23, 1992…

Valentinesletters-1-329e110.jpg
width: 620
height: 413

In their own words: 6 of history’s most fascinating letters
type: item
date: 2019-10-17T10:12:25.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Letters
description: From a scribbled warning about the Gunpowder Plot to a typed letter condemning the lack of lifeboats on the Titanic, the National Archives holds many of the most significant letters ever written. Here, we share extracts from six such letters, to shine a spotlight on history's key events…
encoded: Containing more than 80 letters, postcards and telegraphs written by historical figures including Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine Howard, Karl Marx and Winston Churchill, In Their Own Words: Letters From History (first published in 2016) recaptures a lost world in which correspondence was king. Drawing on more than 200 kilometres of records from the National Archives, the collection reflects on major historical events and developments, including the declaration of the Second World War, the death of Antarctic explorer Captain Oates, the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the trial of Nelson Mandela. Here we bring you extracts from the book highlighting six of its most intriguing letters… Discovering Tutankhamun’s Tomb, 1924 ‘Would it not be a gracious, a kindly thing and a very diplomatic thing to do for the British Government and the Egyptian Government,’ American citizen G W Chance wrote to the Foreign Office on 7 January 1924, ‘to salute with Military honors, the remains and tomb of one of Egypt’s Rulers just discovered’. The Eastern Department of the Foreign Office dismissed the suggestion with a casual ‘external evidence would point out to his being the possessor of a weak mind,’ but the American’s idea was actually quite in line with the spirit of his time. Tutankhamun: who’s afraid of the pharaoh’s curse? What killed Tutankhamun? A brief history of the afterlife It all started in the Valley of the Kings, on the West Bank of the Nile in the south of Egypt. The Valley, which pharaohs chose as their place of eternity from the 16th century BC, is a fascinating place; among the most desolate, scorching hot spots on the planet, it is also one of the most truly magical. British archaeologist Howard Carter and his sponsor George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, were given permission to dig in the Valley of the Kings in 1915. They went from one frustrating, fruitless season to the other until, on 4 November 1922, they discovered the entrance of a tomb with intact seals…

The-Monteagle-letter-26-October-1606-dabb610.jpg
width: 800
height: 530

The letters that reveal Horatio Nelson’s secrets
type: item
date: 2017-08-30T10:47:51.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Letters
description: He was Britain's greatest naval hero, famed for his victories against the French during the Napoleonic Wars – most famously the battle of Trafalgar, at which he was killed. Now, a BBC Two series explores Nelson’s letters, which reveal how he skilfully used PR to advance his career, and how his passionate love affair with Emma Hamilton changed his life forever This article was first published in March 2015
encoded: Here, writing for History Extra, the director of Nelson: In His Own Words, explores some of Nelson’s most revealing writings… “Sir, The ever to be lamented Death of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, who, in the late conflict with the enemy, fell in the hour of victory… I have not only to lament in common with the British Navy, and the British Nation, in the fall of the commander-in-chief, the loss of a Hero whose name will be immortal and his memory ever dear to his country; but my heart is rent with the most poignant grief for the death of a friend…” Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood Cuthbert Collingwood, Horatio Nelson’s second-in-command at Trafalgar, could not have caught the mood better in his despatch on the death of his boss: solemn mortification mixed with lip-quivering idealisation. A few weeks later, London expressed those same sentiments as Nelson’s coffin made its stately way to St Paul’s. It was said that huge crowds turned out to watch; the silence broken only by plaintive wails of grief. We wouldn’t witness that again until the funeral cortege of Diana, Princess of Wales made its way to Westminster Abbey, nearly 200 years later. Some have argued this was the end that Nelson had always envisioned for himself: the navy’s most successful commander, adored by his men, struck down in his finest hour defending his country from her most hated foe, buried in the church that symbolised Britain’s mercantilist power. From his early days in the navy, Nelson had always been ambitious. “I wish to be an Admiral and in command of the English fleet. I should very soon either do much or be ruined,” he wrote to his new wife, Fanny, when he was serving as a young lieutenant in Italy. It was entirely in keeping that Nelson would exhibit such barefaced ambition in a letter; writing to his superiors, his friends, brother officers and family was not just a means of communicating with the outside world (imagine, for a moment, Nelson’s blockade of the French fleet: holed up i…

H-Nelson-2-5724a3a.jpg
width: 800
height: 530

Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in their own words: 5 fascinating letters from Tudor monarchs
type: item
date: 2017-06-11T01:51:05.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: British queens
subject: Henry VIII's wives
subject: Letters
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: When Henry VII and his successors put quill to paper, they left us a priceless insight into their desires, fears and motivations. Andrea Clarke tells the story of the five Tudor monarchs via their letters and diaries...
encoded: Henry VII’s dynastic ambitions The first Tudor king pens a gushing welcome to his son’s wife-to-be, 1501 This missive to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon is one of the only known examples of a letter written in the hand of Henry VII. It appears that the king took great pleasure in writing it, for it presaged an event that, Henry believed, would help secure his grip on the throne – Catherine’s marriage to his son Arthur Tudor. Henry wrote the letter in October 1501 – 16 years after seizing the English crown from the Yorkist king Richard III at the battle of Bosworth. Henry’s own Lancastrian claim to the throne was tenuous, and even though he quickly married Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV, to unite the rival dynasties of York and Lancaster, a succession of Yorkist plots to unseat him followed. Henry VIII: the boy who would be king Did Henry VIII acknowledge any of his illegitimate children? Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen? In response, the king shrewdly arranged strategic marriages for his children to bolster the new Tudor dynasty by linking it into a network of European royalty. In March 1488, Henry initiated talks with the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, to negotiate an alliance with Spain and the marriage of his eldest son and heir, Prince Arthur, to their youngest daughter, Catherine. The following year, the Anglo-Spanish Treaty of Medina del Campo was concluded and Arthur and Catherine, aged two and three, were pledged to be married. Catherine’s departure from Spain was repeatedly delayed by disputes over the payment of her dowry but she eventually set sail for England in September 1501. Henry’s excitement at the news is palpable in his letter. “Madam, [your late arrival] here in our realm is to us so very agreeable that we cannot adequately say or express the great pleasure, joy [and] relief which we feel,” the king gushes. The arrival of a princess from one of the greatest royal houses in Europe to marry his eldest so…

5-E8FAGT cmyk-60cc70b.jpg
width: 1002
height: 1222

"If I don't come home": letters from a D-Day captain
type: item
date: 2014-06-05T11:49:04.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Letters
description: The heartfelt diary of a captain written during the 1944 Normandy invasion has just been published. Captain Alastair Bannerman, who features in tonight's ITV documentary If I Don't Come Home - Letters from D-Day, recorded his thoughts and emotions before, during and after the invasion. His diary, which is from tomorrow available to read as an ebook, charts the building suspense in the run-up to D-Day, as well as the unforgettable "colours" and "sounds" of the day itself.
encoded: A 30-year-old father-of-two, Bannerman's diary reads like an extended love letter to his wife. In it he describes his longing for "your understanding, your quiet love and your gentleness", and his frustration that "duty and barbed wire, destiny and man’s madness have put thousands of miles between us". Bannerman's notebook was confiscated when he was taken prisoner by the Germans on 7 June 1944. Having narrowly escaped death, and survived the ordeal of a prisoner of war camp, Bannerman returned home to his wife and sons in April 1945. Extraordinarily, some years later a German translation of his diary was returned to him, and is now available to read. The book accompanies the ITV documentary If I Don't Come Home - Letters from D-Day, in which Bannerman features. Here, we have selected five highlights from the book (reproduced courtesy of ITV Studios Global Entertainment): 1st June To-day we have come into a new camp from where we shall embark and so there is only a last bastion between us and the fight in front of us. I have to admit I am not a hero and I have never wished for a free bath in the Channel! Nor have I been impatient because of the long delay. Now it seems that the day approaches us with the speed of lightning and just now I met Rowland who admitted to me that he was really afraid! He doesn’t know where we go but when we looked at a map of France we have – independently of each other – come to the conclusion that it could be Calais... James Henderson, gunner major, is asleep; he saw his wife to-day, the lucky man; his name is on a special list and he can go wherever he wishes to. My darling, how very much I long for you, to put my arms around you and to be embraced by you. It is torture not to get any letters and to feel that very likely you do not get mine either with this 100% censorship. At least I can imagine how you are sleeping now in our familiar and dear nursery, and this is a true blessing. 2nd June To-day we learn that tomorrow we will march t…

D-Day-captain-2-468b32c.jpg
width: 801
height: 532

Books interview with Michael Broers: "You don't have to make up myths about Napoleon's youth – just look at his letters to see evidence that he was a great leader"
type: item
date: 2014-03-08T14:28:43.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Letters
description: Michael Broers talks to Matt Elton about the first part of his new biography of Napoleon, which covers the years from 1769 to 1805 and draws upon a newly published set of his correspondence
encoded: You’ve written about Napoleon before. What inspired this new book? The main thing was the publication of a new edition of his correspondence by the Fondation Napoléon in Paris, which offers us a completely new source for the man’s life. The first edition of Napoleon’s correspondence was produced in the 1850s and 1860s by his nephew, Napoleon III. So that was an official version, a bit as if Teddy Kennedy had edited the memoirs of John Kennedy: the word ‘Monroe’ wouldn’t crop up once. There’s a real irony here: Napoleon was master of the universe, emperor of the western world, and so obviously had scribes and secretaries working for him around the clock. He was also a prodigious correspondent himself. And yet, because of the ‘official’ nature of the material we’ve had access to, we have had to treat it with great circumspection – so historians have often used memoirs instead. This correspondence seemed to offer the first chance to write a proper, conventional life of this great statesman, using both memoirs and his own words. In your book, you consider Napoleon’s life in light of these letters. What impression do we get of his early life? I think that coming from a certain kind of Corsican family, had a permanent influence on him – but not in the way the stereotypical vision would have it. Corsica’s a complicated place in the sense that it’s actually two places. There’s the Corsica of the mountains, of the interior, that was very much a poor land of isolated villages, shepherds, and a vendetta culture. Too readily Napoleon and his family are associated with that world when they were nothing to do with it: they came from Ajaccio, which is one of four middle-sized towns that cling to the coast of Corsica and were founded mostly by the Genoese in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. They were civilised town dwellers, proud of having a Renaissance, humanist education. Napoleon had a happy childhood. He loved his parents very much: one of the great myths is that he hat…

GettyImages-113436999-bc9d1fd-62f7d15.jpg
width: 720
height: 479