In spring 1953, Britain was looking forward. After the trauma of the war and its aftermath, people were no longer focused simply on surviving. Thanks in part to the postwar settlement and welfare stat

Although I realise that it is a favourite pastime among historians, particularly the British, to demonstrate that our idols have feet of clay, I must protest at the inclusion of Winston Churchill in t

Is this the age of dictators?” asked veteran journalist Sir Sidney Low. He was writing in September 1923, the month in which a military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in Spain. At the sa

This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of

At the age of five, the celebrated children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson attended London’s Festival of Britain – a summer of activities and exhibitions around the South Bank to throw off the postwa

Exaggerating her beetling monobrow and wispy dark moustache in self-portraits, the artist Frida Kahlo was a female force to be reckoned with, unafraid to pour her heart onto the canvas. Only last autu