Alexander Lee
Columnist at History Today
Author - Historian - Columnist @HistoryToday - Fellow @RenWarwick - Fellow @RoyalHistSoc - Rep’d @GeorginaCapel - New Book: MACHIAVELLI (https://t.co/46XvPtYedH)
Articles
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2 months ago |
historytoday.com | Alexander Lee
Except for aliens, there are more conspiracy theories about history than anything else. There are people who believe that Shakespeare’s plays were really by the Earl of Oxford, that JFK was assassinated by the Illuminati, that the Merovingians were descended from Christ. But none of these come close to the weirdness that Jean Hardouin dreamed up.
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Mar 25, 2024 |
historytoday.com | Alexander Lee
In late 1665 the Jewish community in Venice was amazed to learn that their long-awaited messiah had come and was living with his wife in Smyrna. Any other time, they’d have greeted the news with disbelief. After all, there had been plenty of people who’d claimed to be the messiah before. In fact, they’d even seen one themselves. A little over 100 years earlier, they had expelled a dark-skinneddwarf called David Reubeni who had tried to con them with tales of his ‘kingship’.
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Jan 29, 2024 |
historytoday.com | Alexander Lee
On 13 June 1934 Boris Pasternak was at home in Moscow when the telephone rang. As one of Russia’s most famous poets, he was used to being interrupted; but what he heard when he picked up made his blood run cold. ‘I have Comrade Stalin on the line for you’, said the voice. Pasternak was terrified. Before he could stammer out a reply, ‘the Boss’ himself came on. He wanted to talk about the recent arrest of Pasternak’s friend, Osip Mandelstam.
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Nov 29, 2023 |
historytoday.com | Alexander Lee
Amid the excitement of Christmas, it is sobering to think how little we know about Jesus’ early life. Only two of the four canonical gospels – Luke and Matthew – say anything at all about it; and even they leave much unsaid or unclear. Apart from mentioning that Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus and Herod the Great, they give no clue as to the exact date of his birth; they cannot agree whether he was visited by shepherds or Magi; and only one of them mentions the flight into Egypt.
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Oct 10, 2023 |
historytoday.com | Alexander Lee
On 9 February 1927, Giulia Canella opened the morning edition of La Domenica del Corriere to discover that her dead husband had come back to life. She could hardly believe her eyes. Eleven years earlier, on 25 November 1916, Captain Giulio Canella had been leading an attack on Monastir (modern Bitola), when his company came under heavy fire. When the survivors crawled back to their positions, Canella wasn’t there.
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