Explaining History

Between 1926 and 1937 the Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci was imprisoned by Mussolini's fascist government followin... Read more

Following the death of the dictator and the end of Stalinism, different Warsaw Pact members attempted to solve their eco... Read more

In 1920 the sale, import and manufacture of alcohol in America was banned and for the next thirteen years the government... Read more

In November 1963, shortly before he was assassinated, John F Kennedy ordered the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem of... Read more

Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28th 1914, Austria deman... Read more

In August 1968, during a year of violence and political tension in America, protesters fought a pitched battle in the st... Read more

In 1947, two days after India became an independent nation, the plans to partition the country into a Hindu India and Mu... Read more

In February 1943, after one of the longest coldest winters of the war, the news that the German 6th Army had been lost a... Read more

The cold war certainties that existed up until March 1953 were thrown into doubt when Stalin died, leaving Eisenhower an... Read more

Between 1958-1962 Mao's second five year plan, known as the Great Leap Forward, resulted in economic chaos and a famine ... Read more

Expecting to report to the House of Commons a terrible military disaster, Winston Churchill on June 4th 1940, gave the m... Read more

Throughout the 20th Century Romania has endured the twin catastrophes of fascism and communism. During the Second World ... Read more

Between August and October 1914, the Ottoman Empire attempted to play both sides in the First World War off against the ... Read more

The journey made by Vladimir Lenin in 1917 from Zurich to Petrograd was part of a German strategy to undermine its enemi... Read more

The politically motivated trial of Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti is examined in depth here, courtesy of Eric Fon... Read more

In the immediate aftermath of the Chinese Civil War and the seizure of power by the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong ... Read more

The British mandate in Palestine and Jewish mass immigration placed immense economic pressure on the indigenous Arab peo... Read more

In the late 19th Century a series of intellectual and ideological movements coalesced into the beginnings of fascist tho... Read more

The insertion of a highly personalised dictatorship into Germany's previously highly functional bureaucratic state and t... Read more

The British, aware of their imminent loss of world power in Asia, encouraged the partition of India. Military planners a... Read more