BBC History Magazine (UK)

2 weeks ago | historyextra.com | York Membery

He had a Walter Mitty quality: he was constantly fictionalising his life and pumping out fake versions of himself – partly, I think, because of his humble background [his father was a travelling salesman]. He lied about where he was born and grew up, and faked archaeological finds and ‘artefacts’ that he’d knocked up in his shed.

1 month ago | historyextra.com | York Membery

Moreover, it’s an opportunity to look back and remind ourselves that our children – my boy is 16 and my girl is 14 – live in peace in a democracy because of the sacrifices of the Second World War generation. My grandfather was in the army during the war, though he was one of those people who never spoke about what he did and where he went, and he died when I was quite young.

1 month ago | historyextra.com | Kev Lochun

“The jury often reached a not guilty verdict simply because they thought, ‘This person doesn’t deserve to be hanged’”, explains Professor Manuel Eisner, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “They thought, ‘He’s a respectable member of the community. He gives to the Church. He has apprentices who he trains. He does all kinds of things right. And here was this stupid conflict that ended up badly, and somebody died.’”Theft, however, was a different story.

1 month ago | historyextra.com | Kev Lochun

In this early Mesopotamian society, being an exorcist – an āšipu – didn’t mean you were someone who expunged the supernatural. These exorcists were trained healers who treated everything from toothaches to cattle fevers, not only with the aid of scalpels or potions alone, but with rituals, incantations and appeals to the gods.

1 month ago | historyextra.com | Kev Lochun

Instead, he had tried to regroup at Blackness Castle, on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, but fled when rebel forces advanced, and was intercepted near a mill outside Bannockburn. What happened next remains one of the most unresolved and politically resonant royal deaths in Scottish history. “We just know there was a pursuit to get to a mill and then he's stabbed by someone,” explains historian Gordon McKelvie, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.