HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-10-29T09:01:13.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Michael Wood on China's immense suffering in the Second World War
items: This ancient goddess commanded a Wonder of the World – but why did she have thirty breasts?
items: Gray Barker: UFO conspiracy theorist
items: Why we should be better about talking about death, with Dr Helen Gittos
items: Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "A UK museum that tells the long, rich history of migration is long overdue"
items: Be neighbourly like a Pompeian
items: Zoot suits, mashers & New Romantics: the evolution of the dandy
items: The Age of Spectacle: Live Aid at 40
items: Hug a tree like a pagan from the margins of Europe
items: "There's little understanding of the shared history of Britain and the subcontinent" | South Asian Heritage Month

Michael Wood on China's immense suffering in the Second World War
type: item
date: 2025-10-29T09:00:55.000Z
creator: Michael Wood
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Historical events
description: "China suffered horrendous losses, second only to the Soviet Union", writes Michael Wood
encoded: The Second World War still plays a massive role in our national mythology in Britain. But if I were to ask you: “Who was the fourth ally?” I imagine that most readers would have to think twice. The answer is China. China fought the entire war – and longer – and suffered horrendous losses, second only to the Soviet Union. Frank Capra’s Why We Fight documentaries, which included a 1944 film called The Battle of China, saw the war with Japan as part of “the struggle of freedom against slavery, civilisation against barbarism”. Films in the series close with the hope that a victory for the democracies – Republican China in the 1930s, don’t forget, had been a fledgling democracy – will bring about “the utter defeat of the war machines of Germany and Japan”. Today, history is a big deal in China. Since 1949, the Chinese view of modern history has centred on the ‘century of humiliation’ following the First Opium War (1839–42), when foreign powers carved up the country. But more recently, the Second World War has assumed a powerful new role in Chinese nationalism. There’s a museum to the war in Beijing, the Museum of the War of Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and a harrowing memorial to the 1937–38 Nanjing Massacre. At the China Modern History Museum in Nanjing, you can dress up in nationalist Kuomintang or communist uniforms and have your photo taken in wartime dioramas. The Chinese view of the conflict has shifted towards showing the country as a heroic participant in a war that was moral and just. The Chinese had been engaged in hostilities with Japan since 1931, when the Japanese invaded Manchuria. The conflict proper lasted from July 1937 until 2 September 1945 – the 80th anniversary of the conflict’s end is being marked this year. So the Second World War effectively started earlier, and lasted longer, here than in Europe. And without China, the course of the wider war might have been very different. Read more | Michael Wood on amazing insights …

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This ancient goddess commanded a Wonder of the World – but why did she have thirty breasts?
type: item
date: 2025-10-24T12:00:22.000Z
creator: Isabel King
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Gods
description: The strange and powerful symbol at the heart of one of history’s greatest temples reveals the importance of the goddess Artemis in ruling fertility, childbirth and nature
encoded: When we think of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may be the first examples that come to mind. However, the oldest-known versions of the list start with a landmark that is often forgotten: the Temple of Artemis. Located in the ancient city of Ephesus (near modern-day Selçuk, Turkey), this remarkable place of worship was renowned for its size and scale, standing at least 20 metres tall and boasting an enormous tile-covered roof supported by 127 marble columns. With a floor plan of some 6,000 square metres, the temple was also nearly three times as large as the famous Parthenon in Athens. But some of the most startling archaeological evidence from Ephesus isn’t concerned with the dimensions of the temple, nor its complicated history of destruction and rebuilding. Instead, much attention has been directed towards a collection of statues depicting the temple’s patron deity, Artemis. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/BAL957668-36357fc.jpg" width="7715" height="4533" alt="A large temple with a triangular roof and many columns holding it up. It sits on top of a large flight of stairs. The roof has a mural of the goddess sitting in the middle and surrounded by crowds of people and two golden horses" title="A 20th-century depiction of the Temple of Artemis, dedicated to the goddess Artemis (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> Rather than portraying the goddess as a conventional Greek beauty, the sculptures display Artemis in an altogether different guise. And, according to classicist and broadcaster Bettany Hughes, these statues bear a particularly striking physical characteristic. Read more | On the steps of a sacred temple, Cleopatra's feud with her sister came to a blood-soaked end “[This] is not the Artemis that you probably have in your heads… this image of a beautiful young woman in a tiny Greek chiton, artfully pulling a bow and arrow,” reveals Hughes on an episode…

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Gray Barker: UFO conspiracy theorist
type: item
date: 2025-10-05T08:00:36.000Z
creator: David Clarke
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Amazing lives
subject: Historical people
description: Tales of alien sightings and government cover-ups have captured American imaginations for decades – but few with such global appeal as the Men in Black. David Clarke introduces the ufologist who popularised these shadowy space-age legends
encoded: One night in 1953, three mysterious men sporting black suits reportedly arrived uninvited at the home of Albert K Bender in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The menacing trio, who reportedly identified themselves as agents of the US government, threatened Bender with prison if he told anyone about a secret he had discovered – information relating to the source of the flying saucer mystery. They scared him so badly that he was physically sick for three days. Bender was no mere disinterested civilian. An obsessive ufologist, he was the founder of the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB), the world’s first civilian UFO investigation club. Shortly after that ominous visit, and on the orders of those ‘secret agents’, he shut down the IFSB. At least one person was both disappointed and intrigued by this development: Gray Barker, only recently recruited as the IFSB’s chief investigator and a contributor to its magazine, Space Review. “He was 6ft 4ins tall, with a gentle southern accent and a sly sense of humour,” recalled his friend John Keel, a fellow investigator of UFOs and monster stories. “And it can truly be said that he knew too much about flying saucers.” It was Barker’s exploration of the ‘men in black’ (latterly abbreviated as MIB) that had a long-lasting and global impact on ufology and wider popular culture. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GreyBakerHRillowebready-cdc7915.jpg" width="2232" height="1488" alt="A photograph shows a man in a dark shirt, sitting at a type writer with a black phone next to him. He is smiling widely up at the camera. In the background, there are the opening pages of a book called BOOK OF SAUCERS" title="Writer Gray Barker shared reports of UFOs in his books and journal The Saucerian Bulletin, but also “launched hoaxes, joined others’ deceptions, and manipulated people’s beliefs”, according to a friend and co-author (Images by TopFoto, collage by Rachel Dickens)" /> Born in West Virginia in 1925…

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Why we should be better about talking about death, with Dr Helen Gittos
type: item
date: 2025-09-05T08:00:56.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Burial
subject: Death
description: For our ancestors, death was part of daily life. We can learn from their open conversations about this taboo topic, says Dr Helen Gittos, and create modern rituals to help us cope
encoded: We don’t know how to talk about death. It’s a modern taboo. Search the topic online and you’ll quickly find people who deal in end-of-life matters arguing that we need more transparent, more honest conversations about an event that is, after all, going to come to us all. Charities like Hospice UK definitely want us to be better about talking about it. It wasn’t always this way. In fact, it’s only really in the 20th century that we’ve actively disassociated ourselves from death. The process has been institutionalised and medicalised. The palliative care physician and author Kathryn Mannix wrote about it in a Guardian article a few years ago. In the 19th century, according to the historian Judith Flanders, discussing Victorian death and mourning on a recent episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, “ it was part of daily life. It wasn’t tucked away neatly in hospitals where you go in and visit for an hour, but you don’t see all the day-to-day stuff, you don’t see people die”. She continues: “Many people go happily through their whole lives without ever seeing a dead person, which is simply not possible in the 19th century. Then, hospitals were very limited in the kind of diseases or illnesses they cared for. They were very specifically for certain things only. If you could afford it, you were looked after at home. Hospitals were a place of last resort for people who were too poor, too desperate, so everybody saw death.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-464472069-ccb7e8d.jpg" width="5204" height="3383" alt="A bracelet with two gold edged picture frames on it. In each, there is a photo of a girl with brown ringlets and wearing a purple dress" title="This Victorian bracelet has a band of woven hair and may have been a piece of mourning jewellery, which was in fashion during that era (Image by Getty Images)" /> Past and present rituals I went to a funeral the other day. It was of a dear friend who had died far too young, …

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Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "A UK museum that tells the long, rich history of migration is long overdue"
type: item
date: 2025-08-28T08:00:15.000Z
creator: Kavita Puri
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Civil rights
subject: Global cities
subject: Historical people
description: Kavita Puri on explorations of the migrant experience
encoded: If you gaze up at the skyline in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, you might spot a new addition. Made from stainless-steel panels and shaped like a rollercoaster, the Tornado sits on top of the city’s newly opened Fenix, a museum that tells the story of human migration. Visitors climb to the distinctive Tornado up a sweeping staircase at the museum’s entrance, along a meandering route that represents the many different journeys people take to reach their destinations. On arriving at the viewing platform, you can take in a panoramic view of the city and its waterways where millions of Europeans once boarded ships in Europe’s largest port, many of them leaving for a new life in the US. Today, Rotterdam is home to more than 170 nationalities. It’s an interesting choice to open a museum to migration at a time when the subject has become so toxic, not least in the Netherlands. Designed by the Chinese firm MAD Architects, the museum displays have exhibits including thousands of suitcases, images of refugees, and a life-sized city bus. Perhaps reasoned discussions about migration can be inspired by art. Read more | "Museums are magical places": Kavita Puri on a new initiative encouraging close encounters with history This is not the first European museum dedicated to migration: they exist in many countries, including Germany, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Poland and France. So it is surprising that the UK does not have a permanent migration museum, only one that has spent years in makeshift venues. After all, millions of people have left Britain over the centuries, not least during the building of its empire, while inward migration – particularly during the postwar years – has shaped our language, culture, cuisine and art. Until recently, you could visit the Migration Museum in its temporary home in Lewisham Shopping Centre, housed in a former H&M store between Foot Locker and TK Maxx. Outside the entrance stood a sculpture entitled Wall, comprising two panels from the Berlin Wall …

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Be neighbourly like a Pompeian
type: item
date: 2025-08-18T13:30:15.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Historical people
subject: Roman Britain
description: A communal toilet might be an unlikely place to seek life inspiration, but we can all learn from Roman community values, Dr Jess Venner tells Dr David Musgrove
encoded: Would life be better if we all went to the toilet together again? That’s a question that I wonder about sometimes, and if you know your ancient history, you’ll know that I say ‘again’ because I’m drawing on the experience of the Roman communal toilet. Go to somewhere like Chedworth Roman villa in Gloucestershire, or Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall, and you’ll see the remains of their multi-occupancy latrines. There people sat cheek by jowl doing their business, with no screens to hide their modesty or disguise the fact that they were relieving themselves in the company of their peers. I’m an enthusiast for lavatorial matters, so I gave a talk on the history of toilets at the fabulous Chalke History Festival this summer. When I raised the idea of a return to communal defecation in the Roman style, it returned a surprisingly positive reaction from the audience in the marquee. That was probably just a response to my rabble-rousing rhetoric in the moment. I rather doubt that a petition for open loos would be well received in reality. However, maybe there is something in the ancient Roman attitude to the importance of community and neighbourly values that we could learn from. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/08/GettyImages-825926258-a34b24b.jpg" width="2000" height="1493" alt="A large Roman stone wall with deep trenches in it. On top, there are round, bowl-like stones. On either side of the wall and in the distance, there are green fields and trees" title="The communal latrines at Housesteads Fort, at Hadrian’s Wall, are the best preserved from Roman Britain (Image by Getty Images)" /> Community spirit Dr Jess Venner is a Roman historian, with a particular expertise in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and when I asked her for a Life Lesson from History, she proposed that we might take something from the Romans’ strong sense of community. “Romans were good neighbours because they built their lives around community,” she explains. …

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Zoot suits, mashers & New Romantics: the evolution of the dandy
type: item
date: 2025-08-13T06:30:12.000Z
creator: Ellie Cawthorne
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Peter Andersson delves into various dandy subcultures that saw men dressing immaculately, from the early 19th century to the 1980s
encoded: From zoot suiters and mods, to mashers and Congolese sapeurs, since the early 19th century, fashionable male subcultures have popped up across the globe. Speaking to Ellie Cawthorne, Peter Andersson examines how the idea of the 'dandy' has evolved over time, and argues that the idea of dressing well was not limited to the elites. Peter Andersson is the author of The Dandy: A People's History of Sartorial Splendour (Oxford University Press, 2025) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon <a href="https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?id=489797&clickref=historyextra-288194&awinmid=3787&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-dandy%2Fpeter-k-andersson%2F9780198882435%23%3A%7E%3Atext%3DThe%2520Dandy%253A%2520A%2520People%27s%2520History%2520constitutes%2520the%2520first%2520ever%2520history%2Cstyle%252Dconscious%2520men%2520about%2520town.#:~:text=The%20Dandy%3A%20A%20People's%20History%20constitutes%20the%20first%20ever%20history,style%2Dconscious%20men%20about%20town." rel="sponsored" target="_blank">Buy now on Waterstones

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The Age of Spectacle: Live Aid at 40
type: item
date: 2025-08-06T08:00:21.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: A big day in history
subject: Historical events
description: When Bob Geldof exhorted audiences to fill Wembley Stadium and empty their pockets for famine relief in Ethiopia, he changed the face of charity fundraising – and of live music. On its 40th anniversary, David Hepworth – one of the BBC presenters on the day – explores the legacy of Live Aid
encoded: If not quite the moon landing or the shooting of JFK, 13 July 1985 remains a day on which most people who were alive remember exactly where they were – a day marked by a seismic social and cultural shift. The defining moment came around seven o’clock in the evening. Queen, a rock band whose star had seemed to be on the wane, was performing ‘We Will Rock You’ at Wembley Stadium. The audience seemed almost possessed – overwhelmed at simply being part of the occasion. Frontman Freddie Mercury pointed the cameraman at the crowd – more than 70,000 people clapping in perfect synchrony, hands above their heads. In this instant was born a new age of musical performance that would be notable as much for what things looked like as for the way they sounded. The road to today’s special-effects-packed, big-ticket concert experience was laid at Live Aid. The Age of Spectacle started here. Essential viewing What was to climax with a TV event that everybody watched because they wanted to began with a TV event that many watched because they had little choice. That was Michael Buerk’s report from the camps on the plain of Korem in Ethiopia’s Tigray region where, in October 1984, many thousands were dying as a result of famine and war. Bob Geldof was at home on the evening of Buerk’s broadcast – because his career as the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats was no longer quite as chart-busting as it had been. Moved and enraged by what he saw, he took the prodigious energy that would ordinarily have been put into plugging a new single, and dragooned his pop mates into singing on a charity record. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-90764827-2c6c58c.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="A man in a stripey shirt stands around with several young children. The children are thin, barefoot and mostly dressed in cut-offs" title="Photojournalist Mohamed Amin and BBC reporter Michael Buerk at Korem relief camp, Ethiopia, in 1984. Buerk’s report on…

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Hug a tree like a pagan from the margins of Europe
type: item
date: 2025-08-05T11:34:25.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Gods
subject: Historical people
description: David Musgrove finds out from Francis Young why we should engage in creative spirituality in the same way that the non-Christian people of the Baltic and far north did for centuries
encoded: I used to be able to say, unequivocally and without hesitation, that I’d never hugged a tree. I can’t do that any more, and it’s all Francis Young’s fault. He told me to be creative with my spirituality, and I took him at his word. Dr Young is a historian and folklorist specialising in the history of religion and belief, and also particular expert on the Baltic. With my inaugural arboreal embrace, I was following in the footsteps of the people that Francis has been studying in his most recent book, Silence of the Gods: The Untold History of Europe's Last Pagan Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 2025). It’s a cracking read, and a revelation if, like me, you could do with being much better informed about the historical and religious story of the peoples living in the geographical northern and eastern margins of Europe. In Silence of the Gods, Francis outlines how in the Baltic region, parts of the far north towards the Arctic, and an area of what’s now Russia today, non-Christian practices persisted for centuries after the church had become established across the rest of the continent. It wasn’t until 1387, as he explains, that Lithuania, the last pagan country in Europe, became officially Christian. Even after this, non-Christian practices persisted for centuries in the region, certainly into the 18th century, and in some places, to the present day. Given the wide spread of space and time we’re talking about, you won’t be surprised to hear that the actual nature of these pagan practices was varied, from shamanism in the far north, to polytheistic veneration of pantheons of multiple gods and spirits, to animism, and to worship of sacred places. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/08/GettyImages-987973286-6b8c286.jpg" width="4928" height="3648" alt="Two women in large flower crowns dance together, arms linked. The one on the left is dressed in khaki and the one on the right is dressed in red" title="Lithuanians celebrate the summ…

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"There's little understanding of the shared history of Britain and the subcontinent" | South Asian Heritage Month
type: item
date: 2025-08-04T08:00:12.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Civil rights
subject: Historical events
subject: Historical people
description: As Britain celebrates South Asian Heritage Month, Shalina Patel, Sumita Mukherjee and Shrabani Basu talk to Matt Elton about how histories of the subcontinent can be better shared and explored
encoded: Matt Elton: What do you see as the value of South Asian Heritage Month? And do you think this kind of specific history month is generally a good thing? Shalina Patel: Black History Month was first marked in the UK in 1987, at a time when there was a huge absence of understanding about black history. Fast forward 30-plus years, and there are groups now advocating for black history 365 days a year. They feel that it shouldn’t be relegated to a specific month, but should be integrated [into conversations] all year. So if we think about the journey, I’d say that South Asian Heritage Month [SAHM, first held in 2020] is really important as a starting point, because there is currently an absence of understanding of the diversity within South Asian culture, communities and history. True, there’s a risk that this is the only time of year when people will talk about this topic, but we’re starting from a place where so few conversations are taking place on a public scale. So marking SAHM is really important now – and I hope that we will get to a point where we won’t need it anymore, because [South Asian stories] will be really integrated into people’s understanding. Sumita Mukherjee: I agree that it’s really important to increase the diversity of history that is being told. SAHM gives us the opportunity to have this conversation – it encourages the media and other forums to showcase stories and histories around South Asia. I would say that there’s an issue, though, with the timing as it stands, because most schools and universities are closed in late July and August, and lots of people are on holiday. Shrabani Basu: I think the important thing is to make it inclusive – it shouldn’t just be South Asians eating curries and watching dances. The point is to make it a national festival that everybody looks forward to. It’s the holiday season, so go for that – make it something that excites people. The danger with all these things is that they lose momentum. To keep it fresh and pop…

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