HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-12-26T16:01:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: These are four of the most brutal Victorian murders. Were women really the perpetrators?
items: I've just been inside a Nazi monster's mansion – and what I found there was deeply haunting
items: Fake news and the Dreyfus affair: the media-fuelled scandal that divided France
items: “I hope I would have defended the Nazis at Nuremberg”
items: Was there a real Sheriff of Nottingham?
items: The Srebrenica massacre: the worst atrocity committed on European soil since the Second World War
items: Spring-Heeled Jack: the fire-breathing phantom that terrorised Victorian England
items: Don’t fear the fairies – but do allow a little enchantment into your life
items: Scotland's season of the witch
items: Why it was more dangerous to steal a loaf of bread than commit murder in medieval England

These are four of the most brutal Victorian murders. Were women really the perpetrators?
type: item
date: 2025-12-26T16:00:35.000Z
creator: Rosalind Crone
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Death
subject: Historical people
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
subject: Murder
subject: Victorian crime and punishment
description: Women accused of violent murders have often faced assumptions about their motives and disbelief that the ‘gentle sex’ could commit such bloody crimes. Rosalind Crone investigates four cases from the 19th century
encoded: 1. A female bodysnatcher? At a time when selling human bodies to anatomy schools reaped hefty payouts, some desperate criminals killed to get their hands on fresh corpses. Was Elizabeth Ross one such grasping murderer? In the early 19th century, ‘resurrection men’ dug up recently buried corpses to meet the huge demand for cadavers to use in teaching and surgical practice. Others were too impatient to wait for someone to die before snatching a body – and took matters into their own hands. Between 1828 and 1831, William Burke (operating with accomplice William Hare) in Edinburgh, and John Bishop and Thomas Williams in London, were convicted and hanged for murdering numerous people in order to sell their bodies to anatomy schools. Indeed, all of the infamous bodysnatchers of 19th-century Britain were male. It’s certainly conceivable that women were involved in the trade as helpmates – but could they ever have been the instigators, or even killers? Meet Elizabeth Ross (alias Cook), a 38-year-old Irish immigrant in London with a reputation for drunkenness, violence and petty crime. She had once been accused of skinning alive six of her neighbours’ cats, and it was rumoured that she had murdered a 14-year-old girl who went missing while in her care. Elizabeth’s common-law husband, Edward Cook, who worked as a nightwatchman for the parish of Aldgate, associated with resurrection men. Little wonder, then, that fellow parishioner Ann Buton was very concerned when her grandmother, Caroline Walsh – at that time an 84-year-old pedlar – accepted Elizabeth’s offer of cheap lodgings. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/Credit-Wellcome-CollectionEliza-Rosswebready-6e9dca8-e1766488850584.jpg" width="613" height="420" alt="A black and white sketch of an elderly woman wearing a frilly bonnet and a high necked coat" title="An illustration of “the atrocious Eliza Ross” from an 1832 book about London ‘Burkers’ – bodysnatchers – including an accoun…

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I've just been inside a Nazi monster's mansion – and what I found there was deeply haunting
type: item
date: 2025-11-28T18:00:32.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Fascism
subject: Historical people
subject: Holocaust
description: Earlier this year, Keith Lowe was granted access to the home of one of the Nazi regime’s most notorious war criminals. Here, he reveals what he discovered within the chateau’s crumbling walls – and the challenges of separating a building from its disturbing past
encoded: It’s the summer of 2025 and I find myself standing at the entrance of an old, abandoned mansion just outside Prague. It looks like a stereotypical haunted house. On either side of the wrought-iron gates is a Gothic statue of a wild boar, glowering towards the road as if to deter all visitors. Beyond lies an overgrown garden and an austere-looking building with crumbling walls and dark windows. Just looking at this place sends a shiver down my spine – not because of the Scooby Doo atmosphere, but because I know its history. It was once the home of a Jewish industrialist, who used to hold lavish parties here for the cream of Czech society. But at the beginning of the Second World War it was requisitioned by the Nazis, who made it the official residence of one of their most notorious war criminals: Reinhard Heydrich. It has taken months to gain access. I first came here in September 2024 with a small group of historians from the US National World War II Museum in New Orleans. We had been tasked with scouting out sites related to Heydrich, but the Czech tourist office told us that this particular place would be impossible to visit because it was private property. Undeterred, my colleagues did a little detective work and managed to locate the owner, and after months of negotiation he finally agreed to give us exclusive access. And so here we are again – only this time the chateau’s gates are open, and we are allowed to go in. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/HeydrichGettyImages-107425114-31d8c6f-e1764247394375.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of a man in full military uniform. He has right hand on his hip" title="Reinhard Heydrich pictured in 1942. The top-ranking Nazi was one of the chief architects of the ‘Final Solution’ (Image by Getty Images)" /> Portrait of a killer The historical significance of this site cannot be overstated. Its owner, Reinhard Heydrich, was one of the most important me…

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Fake news and the Dreyfus affair: the media-fuelled scandal that divided France
type: item
date: 2025-11-24T09:00:02.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Civil rights
subject: Historical people
description: 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
encoded: 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 p…

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“I hope I would have defended the Nazis at Nuremberg”
type: item
date: 2025-11-07T16:34:36.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Fascism
subject: Historical events
subject: Holocaust
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: That’s what renowned barrister, and bestselling historian, Philippe Sands told us, but could you? With the 80th anniversary of the famous war trials upon us – and a new movie to boot – Dave Musgrove reflects on the perils of staging a trial the likes of which the world had never seen before
encoded: To have defended someone like Hans Frank, the governor-general of Nazi-occupied Poland during WW2, charged with the murder of four million human beings, is a tough thing to imagine. Nevertheless, when I asked Philippe Sands – lawyer and writer – whether he would have defended the Nazis in the dock at the Nuremberg Trials, he told me “I hope so! I'm a believer that everyone is entitled to have their lawyer to defend their rights and their interests, irrespective of who they are or what they've done.” That was my final question to Sands after we’d recorded four episodes of an upcoming HistoryExtra podcast series on the Nuremberg Trials at the conclusion of the Second World War. I wanted to know where he’d stand on that question, because our conversation had reminded me how complicated some of the moral, as well as legal, questions were around the decision by the Allies to put a selection of leading Nazis on trial in November 1945. As a UK barrister, Sands is subject to the ‘cab-rank rule’, which obliges members of his profession to “take on any case provided that it is within their competence and they are available and appropriately remunerated”, but the idea of having to defend a Nazi war criminal, quite understandably, gave him pause for thought. Read more | Hitler's downfall and the end of the war and the Third Reich The trial of the century We shall all be given pause to reflect on the Nuremberg Trials as they hove back into public consciousness on their 80th anniversary. The trials ran from November 1945 through to October 1946. Twenty-four leading Nazis were indicted, though only 21 of them eventually stood trial in the courtroom proceedings. Neither Adolf Hitler nor the SS leader Heinrich Himmler were among them, as both had already taken their own lives. That left the biggest name in the dock as Hitler’s successor Hermann Göring, along with Hans Frank, Rudolf Hess, Admiral Karl Donitz and others. As with many big anniversaries, there will be media depictions, …

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Was there a real Sheriff of Nottingham?
type: item
date: 2025-11-03T09:35:14.000Z
creator: Sean McGlynn
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
description: He is the foil to the outlaw Robin Hood, the embodiment of rapacious greed and government corruption in medieval England – but was the Sheriff of Nottingham a real man?
encoded: Yorkshire, July 1225. A sheriff is authorised by the king to “seek and take and behead Robert of Wetherby, outlaw and evil-doer of our land”. He tracks down Wetherby and, a few months later, grabs him. The sheriff’s accounts record a sum of 28 shillings for the cost of the pursuit – and two shillings “for a chain” to hang him. For some historians and folklorists, the headless corpse dangling in the air was that of the original Robin Hood. But what of the man who caught him? The 2025 Robin Hood series from MGM+ features Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Hood’s primary antagonist in the most popular tellings of the legend. Here, he is portrayed as a measured and principled officer, loyally performing his royal duties – an antithesis of Alan Rickman’s sheriff in the 1991 Hollywood film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. From the very start of the Robin Hood legend, it has been built on fictional entertainment; however, there may well be elements of it that are rooted in fact. The Sheriff of Nottingham was one of the facts – sort of. Was the Sheriff of Nottingham a real position? Yes, there were real sheriffs of Nottingham, but not one specific sheriff to match the character of the Robin Hood myth. The first Sheriffs of Nottingham were William Sadler and Thomas Lyng, appointed together in 1449. Most Robin Hood films and TV series are set well before this, during the reign of King Richard the Lionheart. MGM+’s 2025 series tells us that it is set in 1189 – the year Richard comes to the throne. At the start of the series, Henry II (Richard’s father) is still very much alive, much to ire of his queen, the long-suffering Eleanor of Aquitaine (played by Gladiator II alumna Connie Nielsen). Before the mid-15th century, there was the High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests, a position established in 1068 by William the Conqueror. The Royal Forests did, of course, cover Sherwood Forest. It is easy to see how this official title would become readily ab…

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The Srebrenica massacre: the worst atrocity committed on European soil since the Second World War
type: item
date: 2025-07-31T08:00:59.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical events
description: Over the course of four days in July 1995, Bosnian-Serb forces murdered more than 8,000 men and boys – in a United Nations-protected ‘safe area’. Legally recognised as an act of genocide, the Srebrenica massacre is the worst act of mass killing committed on European soil since the Second World War. What drove the perpetrators to carry out such a terrible crime? And how did the international community allow it to happen?
encoded: Before the Bosnian War broke out, Srebrenica was just a small secluded town in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. Very few people outside of the Balkans had even heard of it. But all that changed over the course of a few short days in July 1995 – and for the most terrible of reasons. Srebrenica had been changing fast in the months before it became the focus of the world’s attention. By 1995, it had morphed into a large refugee camp surrounded by hostile forces. Some 40,000 people had been forced to flee there as a consequence of the violent break-up of the country of which Bosnia was part: Yugoslavia. Displaced by a vicious Serb-led ethnic cleansing campaign, those refugees largely consisted of the rural, Bosnian Muslim (or Bosniak) population of eastern Bosnia. War had come to Bosnia in late March 1992, a year or so after two other republics – Croatia, very violently, and Slovenia, much less so – had seceded from the multi-ethnic Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Shaken by the violence in Croatia between the Croat majority and Serb minority, the international community was soon even more appalled by events in Bosnia. “Almost overnight the republic broke apart,” one UN official on the ground noted. Large swathes of territory in the east, north and north-west were ethnically cleansed by Serb paramilitary forces, supported by the Serb-dominated regular Yugoslav Army. After six weeks, by late May 1992, Serb forces controlled 60 per cent of the territory of Bosnia, even though their ethnic kin made up only just over 30 per cent of the population, as against 43 per cent Bosniaks and 17 per cent Croats. Those Bosniaks unable to flee abroad found themselves crammed into a landlocked central rump. The capital, Sarajevo, was besieged. In the west, an enclave around Bihać still held out. So did several pockets in the east, centred on Goražde, Žepa and Srebrenica. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/2NE5810-667225d.jpg" width="1772" he…

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Spring-Heeled Jack: the fire-breathing phantom that terrorised Victorian England
type: item
date: 2025-06-25T16:53:30.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Evergreen
description: A supernaturally athletic ghost is alleged to have menaced the towns and cities of 19th-century England. Able to spew fire from its mouth and jump extraordinary distances, this phantom confounded the police and press alike for decades
encoded: Tall and thin, with glowing red eyes, a monstrous face, sharp metallic claws and the power to breathe fire – this was, for several decades, the most common description of a supernatural entity that terrorised Victorian England. Who was Spring-Heeled Jack? Spring-Heeled Jack was the name given to a ‘phantom’ of urban legend that plagued fretful Victorians and delighted readers of penny dreadfuls. He was so named by the press for his seemingly supernatural ability to leap nine feet – or more – into the air to evade capture. Newspapers struggled to keep up with an influx of alleged sightings, which saw this phantom appear miles apart in quick succession. Police forces across the country were likewise bombarded with reports of the ghost, which could not be captured on account of its ability to leap away at extraordinary speeds and distances. And this earned it a moniker which was to become synonymous with the paranormal for nearly a century: Spring-Heeled Jack. When was Spring-Heeled Jack first seen? The earliest rumours of this ghostly entity emerged from rural villages south of London. In late 1837, villagers in Barnes reported that a white bull had attacked several people (mostly women) at night. Reaching East Sheen, it assumed the form of a white bear and was referred to by locals as the ‘Evil One’. Spring-Heeled Jack first took human form in January 1838, when he appeared wearing brass armour, claw gloves, and the spring-loaded shoes that were to become his hallmark. He was occasionally accompanied by other apparitions, and evaded capture by scaling walls and jumping away – to heights of up to nine feet. Gossip, rumour and occasional newspaper reporting quickly spread these alleged sightings of a fearsome, dangerous devil-man. Victorian Londoners were fascinated and horrified by this supernatural attacker that appeared to be closing in on the capital. In January 1838, the Lord Mayor of the City of London announced that he had received a letter from a ‘Peckham resid…

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Don’t fear the fairies – but do allow a little enchantment into your life
type: item
date: 2025-05-23T15:39:28.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Witches
description: In an age in which we are no longer mortally afraid of the supernatural, there's space to enjoy freely magic and ritual, Professor Ronald Hutton tells David Musgrove
encoded: Most of us, these days, do not believe in fairies. But maybe we should allow a little more enchantment into our lives – that is the Life Lesson from History that Professor Ronald Hutton would have us consider. In late December every year, on the winter solstice, I like to make a mini-pilgrimage to Avebury at dawn. Avebury is, of course, one of Britain’s most impressive prehistoric megalithic monuments – a huge Neolithic stone circle, surrounded by a massive bank and ditch, with two smaller stone circles inside. It’s so big, in fact, that inside the stone circle is an entire village and a pub (which are obviously substantially later in date than the megaliths). I’m not alone in heading to this huge henge for the solstice – many are drawn to it, and there is something of a carnival vibe. I get up at about 4am and generally make some of my friends get up as well (they thank me not for this). We drive for an hour in the dark and then go for a jog for a few miles from the stone circle, past the enormous and abundantly enigmatic Silbury Hill, up to the West Kennet Long Barrow, and then back along the avenue of standing stones that leads into the henge and circle. I try to plan it to arrive back in Avebury as dawn breaks, but I never get the timing right, and it’s invariably overcast anyway, so I’ve never witnessed an impressive spiritual sunrise moment. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/HEPKG2avebury-846ee37.jpg" width="5100" height="3400" alt="A large rock takes up half the image. In the background a long line of people gather together under the purple sky" title="Avebury in Wiltshire is home to Britain’s largest stone circle, which is so big that inside are an entire village and a pub (built much later) (Image by Alamy)" /> I thought about Avebury after I’d chatted to Professor Hutton, one of the leading experts on the history of belief, ritual and the supernatural. I invited him to talk about his life lessons from history and …

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Scotland's season of the witch
type: item
date: 2025-05-02T08:00:54.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Witches
description: In 16th and 17th-century Scotland, many hundreds of ‘witches’ were put to death – 10 times the proportion executed in England. Martha McGill asks what drove the killings
encoded: In November 1590, a servant named Geillis Duncan from East Lothian was interrogated by her employer, David Seton. According to Newes from Scotland, a 1591 pamphlet that included a report of the case, Geillis used to sneak out of her master’s house at night. She also “took in hand to help all such as were troubled or grieved with any kind of sickness or infirmity” and performed “many matters most miraculous”. Suspicions aroused, Seton questioned Duncan about how she worked her cures. When she gave no answer, he tortured her with thumbscrews and by “binding or wrenching her head with a cord or rope”. Still she remained silent. Finally, Seton and others searched her for a ‘devil’s mark’ – a blemish or insensitive spot created by Satan – and found one on her throat. She broke down and confessed “that all her doings were done by the wicked allurements and enticements of the devil, and that she did them by witchcraft”. Witchcraft had been criminalised in 1563, and there had been a handful of prosecutions since. But Duncan’s confession kicked off something new – Scotland’s first large-scale witch-hunt. What’s striking about this panic over supposed black magic is just how much more intense and lethal it was than witch-hunting in other European countries – perhaps most notably England. Read more | Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts? Following her interrogation (involving torture), Geillis Duncan claimed to have participated in a night-time witches’ gathering, also known as a sabbat, at North Berwick kirk. She alleged that other locals were present, and as many as 70 people were ultimately accused. Their confessions detailed bizarre and alarming practices. Supposedly they had sailed across the sea in sieves, meeting at the kirk to dance and sing. The devil had preached from the pulpit, and they had kissed his buttocks. Some of the accused also claimed to have attacked King James VI, casting spells to harm him or raising storms to sink his ships. Newes from…

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Why it was more dangerous to steal a loaf of bread than commit murder in medieval England
type: item
date: 2025-05-01T15:43:16.000Z
creator: Kev Lochun
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: In medieval England, violence was a reality of everyday life — but theft? That was deliberate, unforgivable, and more likely to get you hanged. Criminology professor Manuel Eisner explains why
encoded: If you killed a man in 14th-century England, there was a good chance you’d get away with it. Not because the law was soft, or justice disorganised — in fact, homicide was a capital offence. But because the system, and the society around it, often preferred to look the other way. “The jury often reached a not guilty verdict simply because they thought, ‘This person doesn’t deserve to be hanged’”, explains Professor Manuel Eisner, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. Read more | Are your neighbours spying on you? In the 17th century they had the power to destroy your life “They thought, ‘He’s a respectable member of the community. He gives to the Church. He has apprentices who he trains. He does all kinds of things right. And here was this stupid conflict that ended up badly, and somebody died.’” Theft, however, was a different story. In the eyes of the court, and in the minds of the people, this was a much more calculated and unforgivable betrayal – a sign, according to Eisner, of moral rot. And for that, you could be hanged without hesitation. Violence was common – and often forgiven By today’s standards, murder was shockingly frequent in medieval England. Homicide rates, says Eisner, were “20 to 50 times more frequent than they are currently in England and Wales”. Yet despite the brutal frequency of killings, very few of them ended in punishment. “In principle, medieval law was harsh,” says Eisner. “The only penalty for homicide that you could possibly get was death by hanging.” Yet in practice, the system was far more lenient. “We know that 90 to 95 per cent of all cases that ended up being tried ended with a non-guilty verdict.” That verdict wasn’t always reached through genuine conviction in the defendant’s innocence. Sometimes, says Eisner, a not-guilty verdict would be used to subvert a punishment, even if someone was believed to be guilty. Many cases never reached trial at all. Numerous suspected killers simply disappeared: as soon as they were named, they w…

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