History

One night in 1989, the greatest gymnast in the world tried to escape from communist Romania

Many who work for the EU miss the rigour, clarity and discipline that British Eurocrats brought to the party

The Soviet spy agency took its Cold War tactics from a Chinese military strategist who died in 500 BC. The same ideas are now being used against Ukraine

One of Britain’s leading historians explains how the roots of the decision taken seven years ago were laid decades before that

Europe is once more witness to invasion, destruction and war. Can, or even should, we ever put such horrors behind us?

When the Soviet cosmonaut made her pioneering flight 60 years ago, she was supposed to usher in an era of Soviet “Gagarins in skirts”. What happened?

History never seems to pass in Vienna and this will always be the case

Jutland, at the edge of the EU, has found itself in the centre of the bloc's response to Vladimir Putin's aggression

Understandably, many Jews have reservations abut Poland. Today, baseball is helping change that, one game at a time

The June 1953 uprising by east Germans has become a footnote to history – but not for the few surviving eyewitnesses

We must take a leaf out of Vienna’s book and reckon with the past of the British empire

The fate of Wittenberg’s antisemitic sculpture on the wall of the town church remains in dispute

Russia’s supersonic airliner was a child of the cold war – but a fatal crash 50 years ago ripped through the veneer of Soviet tech superiority

A new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum captures the experience of everyday people who lived through the years of conflict

Does Rome’s first Starbucks threaten Italy’s coffee tradition?

How the KGB took their Cold War tactics from a Chinese military strategist who died 500 years before the birth of Christ - and why they still work

Germany has returned 1,117 looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, but who really owns them?

Today, the first world war is far from forgotten in Flanders, and the English are always welcome

They endured the civil war, persecution and Franco, but the Basques are still singing

Has King Charles given humanity a gift towards healing the intergenerational trauma caused by slavery?

In Germany today, a lot of stereotypes between the East and the West remain. This is far from healthy

A revelatory collection of Mediterranean antiquities makes for a quietly subversive exhibition in Cambridge

The story of Odysseus’s Italian origins are surprisingly popular and Sicilian tourism companies know how to capitalise on this

Berlin is lively and welcoming. But, reminders of past horrors are ever-present across the city

Looking at the blurred and bloody borders of Habsburg history through the writings of Joseph Roth

The genius of a mysterious and overlooked painter is revealed at a new exhibition in The Hague

Forty-three years after the Bologna station bombing killed 85 people, including a young couple from Bristol, a far-right militant was finally jailed for his part in it

Two-thirds of Argentinians are descended from the old country.. and the two nations share some of the same problems

Over 200 years on, Britain may be about to reverse Lord Elgin’s act of chicanery and vandalism

The Greco-Turkish war took place 100 years ago – but historical accounts of those events obscure a disturbing truth, one that must be confronted

A change in the climate between the years 1000 and 1200 led to profound changes across the continent – and the world

The humble life of St Francis of Assisi continues to inspire valuable paintings, showcased in an upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery