HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-02T09:07:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Surrealism and the legacy of caricature | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
items: Fashion and folly | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
items: Health and medicine | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
items: Napoleon: hero or “Little Boney”? | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
items: High society | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
items: The royal family | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
items: From maniacal horses to bat-men on the moon: 14 strange newspaper headlines from history
items: Medieval vampire slayers: why did our ancestors dig up and dismember the dead?
items: Humble Victorian heroes: the ordinary Britons who sacrificed their lives for others
items: The Bengal Famine was one of the 20th century's greatest tragedies – so why is there no memorial to it?

Surrealism and the legacy of caricature | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T09:06:25.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: The world of the Georgians
description: In the final episode of the World of the Georgians, Alice Loxton examines the life, work and lasting legacy of satirist James Gillray – and his influence on modern visual culture
encoded: To conclude the series, Alice Loxton turns the spotlight on the artist who shaped Georgian satire more than any other: James Gillray. This episode explores Gillray’s life, his fearless approach to power, and the increasingly surreal and grotesque style that made his work so influential. From terrifying politicians to distorted bodies and absurd scenes, Gillray pushed caricature beyond realism, laying the groundwork for later artistic movements. View Green Video on the source website Want more from Alice? Find more episodes of the World of the Georgians here Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and Sunday Times bestselling author with over three million followers on social media.

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Fashion and folly | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T09:05:32.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: The world of the Georgians
description: In episode four of the World of the Georgians, Alice Loxton explores Georgian fashion, celebrity and excess – and how caricature delighted in cutting vanity down to size
encoded: In Georgian Britain, clothing was never just about style – it was a public performance of wealth, status and ambition. In this episode, Alice Loxton examines the extravagant fashions of the 18th century, from towering wigs and vast hoop skirts to the scandalously sheer dresses of the Regency era. She also explores early celebrity culture through figures such as opera singer Elizabeth Billington, whose fame made her a magnet for gossip and, of course, satire. View Green Video on the source website Want more from Alice? Find more episodes of the World of the Georgians. Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and Sunday Times bestselling author with over three million followers on social media.

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Health and medicine | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T09:04:12.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: The world of the Georgians
description: In episode four of the World of the Georgians, Alice Loxton investigates Georgian healthcare, where cutting-edge science sat uneasily alongside quack cures and medical scams
encoded: Medicine in Georgian Britain was as ripe for ridicule as it was for reform. In this episode, Alice Loxton explores how satirical artists such as James Gillray mocked the confusion of 18th-century healthcare, where miracle cures, medical quacks and genuine scientific breakthroughs existed side by side. From dubious treatments to the controversy surrounding early vaccination, this episode reveals how caricature captured public anxieties about illness, science and the body. View Green Video on the source website Want more from Alice? Find more episodes of the World of the Georgians. Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and Sunday Times bestselling author with over three million followers on social media.

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Napoleon: hero or “Little Boney”? | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T09:03:09.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: The world of the Georgians
description: In episode three of the World of the Georgians, Alice Loxton explores how British caricature turned Napoleon Bonaparte from feared enemy into a figure of ridicule
encoded: For Georgians in Britain, Napoleon Bonaparte loomed large as both a military threat and a propaganda obsession. In this episode, Alice Loxton examines how satirical artists helped shape public perceptions of Britain’s greatest enemy during the Napoleonic Wars. From heroic self-fashioning in France to the British invention of “Little Boney”, caricature became a powerful weapon of war, shrinking Napoleon’s image and undermining his authority through humour. View Green Video on the source website Want more from Alice? Find more episodes of the World of the Georgians. Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and Sunday Times bestselling author with over three million followers on social media.

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High society | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T09:02:16.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: The world of the Georgians
description: In episode two of the World of the Georgians, Alice Loxton turns her attention from the monarchy to high society, revealing how etiquette, marriage and reputation became prime targets for Georgian satire.
encoded: After skewering the royal family, Georgian satirists eagerly turned their pens on the elite. In this episode, Alice Loxton explores the rigid social codes that governed Georgian high society, where a misplaced laugh, an awkward gesture or a poorly judged marriage could spell social disaster. Using caricatures by satirist James Gillray, she examines courtship, matchmaking and the intense pressure to marry well, revealing a world where appearances mattered deeply – and where artists delighted in exposing the absurdities behind polite manners. View Green Video on the source website Want more from Alice? Find more episodes of the World of the Georgians. Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and Sunday Times bestselling author with over three million followers on social media.

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The royal family | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T09:01:51.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: The world of the Georgians
description: In episode one of her HistoryExtra Academy series The world of the Georgians, historian Alice Loxton explores how satirical artist James Gillray took aim at the Georgian royal family, exposing excess, virtue and scandal at the very top of society.
encoded: Alice Loxton introduces the Georgian era and examines how satirical artists such as James Gillray mocked the royal family, from the frugal George III to his flamboyant and extravagant son, the Prince Regent. Through caricature, the monarchy was transformed from untouchable authority into something recognisably human – flawed, fallible and ripe for ridicule. View Green Video on the source website Want more from Alice? Find more episodes of the World of the Georgians. Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and Sunday Times bestselling author with over three million followers on social media.

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From maniacal horses to bat-men on the moon: 14 strange newspaper headlines from history
type: item
date: 2026-02-01T15:30:24.000Z
creator: Hilary Mitchell
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical events
description: Muckraking journalists and money-hungry editors have been publishing sensational stories since newspapers first began. Hilary Mitchell flicks through the archives and reveals some of the weirdest press cuttings of all time
encoded: 1. "German ghouls: corpses converted to soap and explosives” Yorkshire Telegraph and Star, April 1917 If you think that ‘fake news’ is a new phenomenon, think again. One of the most notorious pieces of misinformation actually dates to the First World War. During the conflict, a gruesome rumour spread that German leaders were using “Kadaververwertungsanstalten” – ‘corpse factories’ – to turn the dead bodies of their own soldiers into products such as soap, candles, and even bombs. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/German-Ghouls-0741ad1-e1769765897344.jpg" width="620" height="411" alt="A newspaper clipping with the headline GERMAN GHOULS across the top" title="German leaders were creating soap and explosives out of corpses, claimed this 1917 newspaper article. In reality, they were victims of a deliberately shocking propaganda campaign (Image by the Newspaper Archive)" /> The lurid story unsurprisingly sparked widespread outrage, but it wasn’t true. It was a purposefully shocking piece of war propaganda, and the German government protested in the strongest terms against the “loathsome and ridiculous” claims. However, that didn’t stop the Yorkshire Telegraph and Star gleefully reporting on the hoax in April 1917, in an article that claimed the Germans were making “dividends from death” by distilling glycerine from dead bodies “and so obtaining some portion of their explosives.” 2. "O Dammit wants his name changed" The Richmond Climax, 6 June 1913 Orlando Dammit was featured in the 6 June issue of the equally curiously named Richmond Climax newspaper. The short article explained that the man wanted to change his name from “O. Dammit” because he “can’t tell whether people are calling him or merely venting injured feelings when they say ‘O, dammit.’” It’s not clear what he wanted to change his name to, or if he was successful in his attempts to change it, but presumably he would have been happy with anything that didn’t begin wit…

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Medieval vampire slayers: why did our ancestors dig up and dismember the dead?
type: item
date: 2026-01-30T15:30:00.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Burial
subject: Death
subject: Medieval life
description: At the turn of the 12th century, two men from a Staffordshire village died suddenly. A few days after they were solemnly laid to rest, they were spotted walking around the village, with their coffins on their backs. John Blair investigates the medieval terror of the living dead
encoded: In the last decades of the 12th century, the townsfolk of Annan in the Scottish borders were terrified by a sinister nocturnal revenant that stalked the dark byways. “Each night his corpse, driven by Satan, left his grave and wandered through the streets” accompanied by howling dogs and spreading sickness and death, according to the contemporary chronicler William of Newburgh. Desperate to put an end to the unholy scourge, two brothers whose father had been carried off by the plague opened the grave and “exposed the corpse, which was distended to a huge corpulence, with a swollen, livid face. It was observed that the shroud, which had been wound around it, was completely shredded up. Too angry to be frightened, the young men struck a blow at the lifeless corpse, whereupon such a flow of blood gushed out that they understood it to be a sucker of many people’s blood. Dragging it out of the town, they quickly built a pyre.” Recalling the accepted wisdom that such a being would burn only after they’d cut out its heart, the brothers took their shovels and hacked out the organ – after which the cadaver was immolated. The curse was finally over. Walking corpses To modern ears, this story stretches credulity far beyond breaking point. Not so to William of Newburgh: he recorded another three such tales, and hinted at many more. There are “numerous modern cases and abundant reports”, he wrote, but “it would be just too laborious and burdensome to write down all episodes of this kind that I have heard to have happened in our own times”. Yet though walking corpses were boringly commonplace in the 1190s, they had almost vanished from the English scene only a few decades later. Apparently they retreated northwards, leaving only occasional traces south of the border with Scotland. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/W45702webready-05b1689-e1769699879666.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An illustration shows two people standing over a cu…

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Humble Victorian heroes: the ordinary Britons who sacrificed their lives for others
type: item
date: 2026-01-28T16:00:38.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Death
subject: Historical people
description: Statues celebrate monarchs, rulers and conquerors – but who remembers the brave folk who gave their lives to save others? Anna Maria Barry recounts stories of self-sacrificing but otherwise ordinary people from the 19th and 20th centuries who are commemorated in one London park
encoded: Tucked away in the City of London, a short walk north of St Paul’s Cathedral, lies a curious, oddly-shaped, leafy little sanctuary. Opened in 1880, Postman’s Park is named for the workers at the nearby General Post Office who liked to visit during their breaks. Today, though, it’s best known as the home of the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, honouring dozens of heroic Londoners who lost their lives while trying to save others, most in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Unusually, the memorial describes the details of each tragic death, from drownings and carriage accidents to house fires and poisonings. No wonder this moving, if somewhat macabre, celebration of bravery continues to fascinate. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-1411624515webready-b2b4c26-e1769529632536.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing a low, long wooden and brick structure against a building. In front of it there is a garden with a stone font in the middle" title="The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice honours ordinary people (Image by Getty Images)" /> Flames faced with fortitude One such quietly heroic Londoner was Alice Ayres. During the night of 24 April 1885, the 26-year-old lay asleep in her bedroom on Union Street, in the home of her older sister and brother-in-law, who employed her as a nursemaid and household assistant. Sharing this room were her nieces Edith, Ellen and Elizabeth, aged five, four and three, respectively. Shortly after 2am, Alice was jolted awake by the crackling of flames, and quickly realised that something was very wrong. Her brother-in-law’s oil and paint shop on the ground floor was on fire, and his wares were rapidly accelerating the flames. Alice had to think fast. Unable to exit the bedroom, she rushed to the window and threw it open to scream for help. She grabbed two bedsheets to tie together before realising that this makeshift rope wouldn’t enable her to lower her nieces to safety…

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The Bengal Famine was one of the 20th century's greatest tragedies – so why is there no memorial to it?
type: item
date: 2026-01-16T15:00:35.000Z
creator: Kavita Puri
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Death
subject: Historical people
subject: Why we should remember
description: Kavita Puri on the first event commemorating the 1943 Bengal Famine
encoded: In a museum in Manchester, on an autumn evening just a few weeks ago, history was made. I joined a group of people who had gathered to pay their respects to casualties of a long-overlooked episode of the Second World War. Curators, students, interested locals and descendants of those involved milled around, drinking chai, looking at pictures in a temporary exhibition. Organisers believe this was the first event to commemorate the estimated 3 million victims of the 1943 Bengal Famine. Those who died were Indians, but they were also British subjects. It’s one of the largest losses of civilian life among the Allies – yet there isn’t a memorial, a museum or even a plaque to them anywhere in the world. So that night – organised by the University of Manchester, Manchester Museum and the Imperial War Museum North, and inspired by my BBC podcast Three Million – marked a very special moment. Read more | The 1943 Bengal famine: "People began collapsing in the streets and dying on the pavements" The exhibition featured portraits of some of the survivors I had interviewed in the Bengal countryside. There was Jamuna Purkayeth, who had travelled to Calcutta (now Kolkata) as a little girl with her father in search of charity. When I spoke to her, she told me that she believed that if she had stayed in her village she would have died of hunger. Also on display were extracts of letters to and from Indian soldiers stationed in the Middle East, censored by colonial authorities for mentioning the extent of the food crisis. Now those letters – uncensored – were presented in a public space. There were also Japanese propaganda pamphlets encouraging the Indian population to rise up against the British. In one cartoon, the wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, is pictured feasting on a sumptuous roast chicken, while underneath the dining table are emaciated, dead Bengalis. The message is clear: Japan will feed you, but the British won’t. Also on display were evocative photographs of Su…

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