Today's release of Prime Minister’s Office records and Cabinet Papers from 1985-1986 covers the mid-point of the Thatcher premiership. If this period is beyond your living memory, you might be...
...telephone and the typewriter were ubiquitous, pneumatic tubes carried messages around the building and telegrams were sent by often laborious analogue methods. The Tube Room, 1987 (FCO) Today’s diverse workforce...
...of leading courtiers and bureaucrats – in essence, creating the first government department that we’d recognise today. A more formal commission and re-organisation by George Downing in 1667 gave permanency...
...department of state formally ended in 1833. All that remains today is the honorific post of the Queen's Remembrancer, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (now part of the Treasury...
Modern technology means that today’s politicians remain contactable, even when on holiday. Constant access to digital communications can be a mixed blessing but, in the event of a crisis, the...
75 years ago today, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back from Munich after two days of tense discussions with the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. He had reached an agreement setting...
Portrait Photograph, President John F. Kennedy. White House | US National Archives Fifty years ago today, the 35thPresident of the United States of America was shot dead as his...
Ninety years ago today, the British political mould was shattered by the election of the first Labour government. After an inconclusive election on 6 December 1923 that the ruling Conservatives...
...40 years ago today, on 28 February 1974, a general election was being fought, amid a major economic crisis. Prime Minister Edward Heath had called a snap election, and had...
...Santiago, Christopher R Nugent. Parish concluded the signing of a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation with Argentina on 2 February 1825. These resulted in a promotion to Charge d’Affaires,...