HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-12-12T08:55:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The Book of Kells: "a masterpiece of medieval calligraphy and painting"
items: Best history books 2025: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year
items: The REAL history behind Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and more
items: 9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes
items: Shakespeare’s 'lost years': what do we know about this secretive chapter of the bard's life?
items: Troubadours: everything you wanted to know
items: John Milton: the Paradise Lost author who challenged the status quo
items: My history hero: Joan Armatrading chooses Charles Dickens (1812–70)
items: A history of the Bible: who wrote it and when?
items: Long road to paradise: the life of John Milton and how he created his masterpiece, Paradise Lost

The Book of Kells: "a masterpiece of medieval calligraphy and painting"
type: item
date: 2025-12-12T08:55:00.000Z
creator: Michael Wood
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Celts
subject: Column
subject: Medieval life
description: "The Book of Kells is a masterwork of medieval calligraphy and painting", writes Michael Wood
encoded: The Book of Kells, one of the greatest pieces of medieval art, is today displayed in the library of Trinity College Dublin. This illuminated gospel book is named after the monastery in County Meath where it was kept in the Middle Ages. It’s a masterwork of medieval calligraphy and painting, with its Celtic knot patterns, scintillating colour, and the staggering intricacies of the display pages and canon tables – all smoky golden magnificence. An Irish annalist called the book “the great Gospel of Columcille [Columba], the chief relic of the western world”. It may be the work described by the historian Gerald of Wales in the 1180s, in his book on Ireland. “Look more keenly at it and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art,” he wrote. “You will make out intricacies so delicate and so subtle… that you might say that all this were the work of an angel, and not of a man.” The book survived war, plunder and the English – Cromwell’s troops were once billeted in Kells. In the 19th century, it was a huge influence on the Celtic revival movement in the arts, and today is seen as the pinnacle of the western tradition of illuminated manuscripts. Read more | Michael Wood on amazing insights into medieval daily life The book was produced around the end of the eighth century, just at the moment Britain and Ireland were about to be changed forever by the arrival of the Vikings. It was long believed to have been created on Iona. But in The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma, published in October, Victoria Whitworth suggests that it was actually written at the Pictish monastery of Portmahomack on the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland. This is one of the least known areas of the medieval British Isles. The Pictish monasteries were destroyed in the Viking age, and with them virtually all written records. The kingdom of the Picts became part of the Scottish kingdom of Alba in the ninth century, and gradually the memory of the Picts faded, leaving many unsolved mysteries. One key …

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Best history books 2025: BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year
type: item
date: 2025-11-20T15:13:49.000Z
subject: Magazine
subject: Period
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: In the roster of laudable history books published in 2025, authors tackled topics as diverse as Gaza, Indian partition, extinction, medieval and Stuart monarchs – even historians themselves. Here, a panel of experts recommend the titles they most enjoyed
encoded: Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War (Basic Books) Lyndal Roper Hannah Skoda: Did you know that Thomas Müntzer, leader of the German Peasants’ War in 1525, used a rainbow flag to rally his followers? It’s an aptly exuberant image for the radical charisma of Müntzer, and for the hope and vision of the peasants. Religious change seemed to open up new ways of thinking about oppression and exploitation for those rebellious upstarts. In Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War (Basic Books), Lyndal Roper works with sources mostly hostile to the peasants, but the result reads with nuance and acuity. We get a real sense of ordinary people longing for justice and a fairer set of relations to the land, alongside the sheer terrors of this war, which was put down with great ferocity. Buy now on Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.org A Short History of the Gaza Strip (Simon & Schuster) Anne Irfan Hannah Skoda: Anne Irfan’s A Short History of the Gaza Strip (Simon & Schuster) is a wonderfully informative account of the complexities of the situation. Beginning in 1948, she guides us through these tangled events with great clarity, drawing on a vast array of sources. The text is nuanced, humane and critical at a time when too many assumptions and untruths are floating around. It might helpfully be read alongside the new podcast series Empire: The History of Gaza, presented by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, which explores Gaza’s deep history stretching back more than 4,000 years. Buy now on Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.org The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Anne Sebba Hannah Skoda: The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), by Anne Sebba, is an intensely moving book. At one point, the women’s orchestra at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp was led by Alma Rosé, niece of Gustav Mahler and an extraordinary musician in her own right. This music-making saved the lives of around 40…

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The REAL history behind Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and more
type: item
date: 2025-11-20T13:17:18.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: TV interest
description: If you thought Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power or The Hobbit was pure fairytale, you would be way off. HistoryExtra's James Osborne explains more
encoded: From the epic battles of Beowulf to the myths of Old Norse sagas and the real-world struggles of the Anglo-Saxons, Tolkien’s legendary world was deeply rooted in the past. But how exactly did these influences weave their way into The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit? In this video, we explore the sources that helped Tolkien forge his fantasy masterpiece, uncovering the warriors, monsters, and lost kingdoms that made Middle-Earth feel so real. View Green Video on the source website

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9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes
type: item
date: 2025-09-04T08:35:03.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: TV interest
description: The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, has for more than 130 years been a star of stage and screen, played by actors including Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen and serialised in countless books. But how much do you know about this famous crime-buster, who made his first appearance in 1887 in Beeton's Christmas Annual? Here, author Martin Davies shares 11 lesser-known facts about Sherlock Holmes...
encoded: 1. The first actor to play Sherlock Holmes was American… The first actor to take on the role of Sherlock Holmes in any official capacity was the American William Gillette. His 1899 stage play was adapted from a script by Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Opening six years after the author had attempted to kill off his creation at the Reichenbach Falls, the play was a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic: between 1899 and 1932, Gillette performed the role more than 1,000 times. Gillette is also credited with introducing the curved briar pipe that was to become synonymous with the great detective – possibly because a straight pipe obscured the actor’s face when he delivered his lines. On the podcast | Sherlock Holmes: the real history that inspired the detective stories On first meeting Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Gillette is said to have appeared in character, complete with deerstalker, and after examining Conan Doyle most minutely, to have opined: “Unquestionably an author!” 2. … who introduced a love interest Gillette was also one of the first to annoy the purists by introducing a love interest for Holmes. When he telegraphed Conan Doyle with the question “May I marry him?” the author is said to have replied: “You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him!” It’s impossible to count the number of writers who, since then, have taken Doyle at his word. Read more | Real-life Sherlocks: the detectives of Scotland Yard and their curious cases 3. He defied death Holmes, having survived the Reichenbach Falls, refused to die with his creator. By the time of Conan Doyle’s death on 7 July 1930, Holmes was already a star of stage and screen. His film debut, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, came as early as 1900. Just a few seconds long, the film used stop-motion camerawork to show Holmes attempting to grapple with a burglar who repeatedly disappears, then reappears in a different part of the room. 4. A 1940s duo cemented Holmes and Watson's on screen personas One of the olde…

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Shakespeare’s 'lost years': what do we know about this secretive chapter of the bard's life?
type: item
date: 2025-06-13T14:20:38.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Shakespeare's 'lost years' refers to an undocumented period in his life, during which little is known about his activities or whereabouts. So what, exactly, could he have been up to? Daniel Swift explores this secretive chapter in the famous playwright's story
encoded: The idea that William Shakespeare’s life contains a stretch of “lost years” is a minor ghost that haunts popular biographies and discussion of his poems and plays. Those missing years are conventionally taken to begin in February 1585, when Shakespeare’s children – twins Judith and Hamnet – were baptised at Stratford upon Avon, and to end in September 1592, when he was described as being “an upstart Crow” in a gossipy pamphlet in London. Between these dates, we have no reliable record that ties Shakespeare to any particular location, or reveals what he was doing. Shakespeare was 20 when his lost years began, and 28 when they ended. Those seven-and-a-half lost years belong in a wider landscape in which we know remarkably little about the playwright. We know virtually nothing for sure about Shakespeare’s schooling, which he probably completed in 1578 or so; nor what he did until he married Anne Hathaway in November 1582. Listen on the podcast | What happened in Shakespeare's lost years? This is not only the case for Shakespeare: scholars may hate to admit it, but our ignorance of so much of this period is vast. Almost 60 per cent of the 3,000 different plays written between 1570 and 1642 are lost. While some titles survive, there could be some lost plays that we have never even heard of at all. It is a safe guess, but a guess nonetheless, that plays by Shakespeare are among these wholly lost plays. We are uncertain of even the most basic things. Until the remains of the Elizabethan Curtain playhouse in Shoreditch, London, were discovered in 2012, theatre historians assumed that it was round; it turned out to be rectangular. Why the lost years matter Shakespeare’s undocumented years have a special quality: enigmatic, evocative and instructive. As those years began, Shakespeare was a young man in a provincial town who had written nothing and had few prospects. When they ended, he was celebrated enough as a playwright to be worth attacking. The lost years are exactly the…

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Troubadours: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2025-04-27T06:30:18.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: Linda Paterson answers your questions on the innovative poets and composers of the Middle Ages
encoded: Composing songs of courtly love and war in the High Middle Ages, the troubadours were the poet-musicians of western and southern Europe – especially southern France. But were they really the lovesick wandering minstrels popular culture would have us believe? Or was there more to their artistry? Speaking to Emily Briffett, Linda Paterson answers your top questions on the troubadours and their enduring poetic and musical legacy. Linda Paterson is the author of The Troubadours (Reaktion Books, 2024) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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John Milton: the Paradise Lost author who challenged the status quo
type: item
date: 2025-04-02T09:36:07.000Z
creator: Matt Elton
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Evergreen
subject: Historical people
description: From his hugely influential epic poem of God and Satan to his fiery political polemics, the 17th-century writer and statesman John Milton left a legacy that stirs literary debate even today. Matt Elton profiles the man who dared to question authority
encoded: John Milton was a poet, polemicist and statesman of the 17th century, a time of political upheaval and radical thought. His controversial ideas – on everything from theology and philosophy to marriage and freedom of the press – often saw him come up against the status quo. Milton’s undoubtedly most famous work Paradise Lost, first published in 1667, established him as one of the most significant writers in English history. He was revered by countless writers and thinkers that came after him, and his works continue to have enduring popularity and relevance to this day. What is John Milton’s Paradise Lost about? Paradise Lost is an epic poem of more than 10,000 non-rhyming lines that charts humanity’s fall from grace. It is Milton’s version of the biblical story of the temptation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The poem tapped into debates about free will and disobeying authority, which struck a chord in the period in which Milton was writing – following the Civil War and the Restoration of the monarchy with Charles II. Adding to the controversy was his sympathetic, complex portrayal of Satan. Embarking on a work this grand in scale and contentious in subject had not been undertaken lightly. “It's something that Milton conceived decades before it was published,” says Professor Islam Issa, who spoke about John Milton for our Life of the Week podcast series. On the podcast | Islam Issa charts the life and work of the 17th-century poet and polemicist John Milton “There's a draft that shows us that he wanted to write a tragedy called Adam Unparadised,” he says. “But Milton ended up writing an epic poem, a specific type of long-verse narrative of the kind that had been written by Homer and Virgil in the ancient world. It always features major heroes, concerns a series of issues, and has an expansive setting.” In this case, that setting was heaven, hell and Earth. What are John Milton’s most famous works? Of the dozens of poems, prose and pamphl…

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My history hero: Joan Armatrading chooses Charles Dickens (1812–70)
type: item
date: 2025-03-03T08:30:39.000Z
creator: York Membery
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: History hero
description: Singer-songwriter and guitarist Joan Armatrading chooses Charles Dickens as a history hero
encoded: In profile Charles Dickens is widely regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. He wrote a string of bestselling books and short stories including The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and Great Expectations, creating some of literature’s best-known characters in the process. His books are still in print, and many have been adapted for stage and screen. He is buried at London’s Westminster Abbey. When did you first hear about Dickens? In my childhood. I went to the local library all the time while I was growing up, reading books by Dickens, Shakespeare and Enid Blyton – the ‘classics’. I particularly loved Dickens’ use of words – it’s poetry, really – and the language that he used is the language we use today. What kind of man was he? These days we talk about people who are humanitarian, entrepreneurial or philanthropic, and Dickens was all of those. Being from a poor family, he had a sense of where he came from, which made him conscious of the plights and poverty of others, and he wrote about such people in his novels. Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Charles Dickens and his family home I think he was also a very thoughtful man, even if he behaved selfishly at times. But that’s human nature: each of us has two sides. What made him a hero? Above all, his artistry – the words and the phrasing – and the incredible stories he dreamed up that have engaged so many people over the years. I write songs and music and, while I don’t find it a struggle, it’s not an easy thing to do – unless you’re a born storyteller, as he clearly was. Moreover, his stories have lasted; they’re as powerful today as the day he wrote them. I subconsciously lean on Dickens because, though I’d never call myself a poet, I try to use words that have meaning and flow. I also admire him for all he did to help those less fortunate than himself. What was Dickens’ finest hour? I particularly like Hard Times, because [scenes with school board superintenden…

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A history of the Bible: who wrote it and when?
type: item
date: 2025-01-16T08:30:36.000Z
creator: Spencer Mizen
subject: Ancient Egypt
subject: General ancient history
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Evergreen
description: The origins of the Bible are still cloaked in mystery. When was it written? Who wrote it? And how reliable is it as an historical record? Spencer Mizen charts the evolution of arguably the most influential book of all time
encoded: In 2007, Time magazine asserted that the Bible “has done more to shape literature, history, entertainment, and culture than any book ever written.” With phrases like “an eye for an eye” and “thou shalt not kill” embedded in our language and over five billion copies sold worldwide (swollen by a further 100 million every year given away for free), its impact is undeniable. Though, while its cultural influence is clear, the history of the Bible is much less so. Questions about who wrote the Bible, when, and why have fascinated and perplexed scholars for centuries. These are the thorniest of questions, made all the more tangled by the Bible’s great age, and the fact that some, or all of it, has become a sacred text for members of two of the world’s great religions – Judaism and Christianity – numbering more than two billion people. Where does the Bible originate? Archaeological discoveries and the study of written sources, such as Merneptah's Stele, have shed light on the history of both halves of the Bible: the Old Testament, the story of the Jews’ highs and lows in the millennium or so before the birth of Jesus; and the New Testament, which documents the life and teachings of Jesus. These findings may be incomplete and they may be highly contested, but they have helped historians paint a picture of how the Bible came to life. For centuries, the Old Testament has been widely interpreted as a story of disaster and rescue – of the Israelites falling from grace before picking themselves up, dusting themselves down and finding redemption. Nowhere is this theme more evident than in Exodus, the dramatic second book of the Old Testament, which chronicles the Israelites’ escape from captivity in Egypt to the promised land. Read more | On ancient battlefields, the world's oldest civilisations turned beloved pets into weapons of war The Bible tells us that Moses led the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt (whose population had been laid low by ten plagues inflicted on the…

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Long road to paradise: the life of John Milton and how he created his masterpiece, Paradise Lost
type: item
date: 2024-12-12T09:00:52.000Z
creator: Professor Islam Issa
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Historical people
subject: Poetry
description: John Milton was an English radical polemicist and poet, whose magnum opus, Paradise Lost, has influenced artistic endeavours since its publication. On the 350th anniversary of his death, Islam Issa explores the story of the man who lived in revolutionary times, and who lost two wives, his liberty and his sight – but never his hope
encoded: John Milton was an early riser. He woke each morning with poetry in his head, itching for it to be recorded. The verses came to him during the night, he said – a special delivery from his very own lyrical muse. By 1652, he had completely lost his sight, so the disgruntled Milton had to wait patiently for a scribe to arrive. In the popular imagination, one of them was his daughter, Deborah, who has been depicted putting pen to paper as her father dictates his intricate poetry. Milton’s biographer wrote that on some days, when it took longer than usual for someone to begin transcribing, the poet “would complain, saying he wanted to be milked”. That was in the mid-1660s, when Milton – in an effort to evade the Great Plague of London – had relocated to a cottage in Chalfont St Giles, rural Buckinghamshire. The move to the country had worked wonders for his writing, and he set to putting the final touches on a magnum opus that had occupied his thoughts for decades and taken years to complete. It hadn’t always been his intention to compose an epic poem. In the early 1640s he’d had in mind a drama, scribbling the outline for a tragedy titled Adam Unparadised. But the political and social turmoil of the couple of decades before his country sojourn had changed his mind about writing a play. Instead, he decided to compose a lengthy poem of more than 10,000 unrhymed lines. Its title was Paradise Lost. Tumultuous times John Milton was born in 1608 in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, the son of a scrivener and composer, also named John. In early adulthood he had developed a habit of opposing the status quo, especially when it came to religion and politics. The Church of England was too hierarchical, he said, proposing that regular people should be able to read the scriptures without being influenced by religious leaders. As for the Roman Catholic church, its obsession with popery and rituals was a form of heresy. In 1642, Milton went to Oxfordshire to collect an intere…

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