ORTONA, ITALY 20-27 DECEMBER 1943

Over a long career, John Hardman has specialised to great effect in teasing out, from speeches, decrees, minutes, memoranda, letters, diaries and unsent drafts, the varied moods of French political de

Capturing the immediacy of fighting and the writhing bodies of soldiers, as well as keeping narrative clarity, proved enormously difficult for painters depicting battles before the advent of photography. Michael Hall reveals how they rose to the challenge

When General Francisco Franco died on 20 November 1975 – 39 years after the start of the brutal civil war that brought him to power – the prospect of a bloodless transition to democracy in Spain appea

In 1945, the Allies were ready with a daring amphibious operation to liberate Jersey and Guernsey by force

Not many successful breakaways involve almost 5,000m of climbing over 324km, but that’s exactly what Napoleon Bonaparte pulled off in just six days in the spring of 1815. After escaping from exile on