In March 1962 a secret report landed on the desks of senior officials in the Foreign Office. Written by Foreign Office Historian Rohan Butler it was a forensic and critical account of the loss in 1951 of Britain’s single biggest …
With a flurry of diplomatic activity in the first 3 days of September 1939, was the Second World War inevitable?
Today is the memorial service for the former foreign secretary Lord (Peter) Carrington, who died July 2018 aged 99. We remember a life-time of his public service and his time as foreign secretary.
Captain Robert Scott’s legacy will forever be an irreconcilable contradiction. At times, he has been venerated as an icon of Edwardian masculinity: a stoical, humble pioneer whose Antarctic expeditions discovered the Polar Plateau and made many significant contributions to scientific …
The independence of South America bought an influx of opportunities for commerce and investment from Europe and North America. Everyone wanted a piece of the newly opened continent. Merchants, industrialists, and entrepreneurs arrived to make their fortunes.
Why could South America not follow European and North American railway expansion to modernise the infrastructure and open access to the remote country?
Sir Norman Brook’s report on the ‘Secret Intelligence and Security Services’ is an important document for understanding the state of Britain’s intelligence and security machinery at the start of the Cold War. Finished in 1951, this wide-ranging review of the …
It is approaching 950 years since William the Conqueror triumphed at the battle of Hastings on 14th October 1066; a pivotal date in England's history. Many know the drama that unfolded in what could be described as a real life historic …
Winston Churchill in a speech in the House of Commons in October 1943 famously described the unique and ancient friendship between England and Portugal as an alliance “without parallel in world history”.[1] It is 630 years since a treaty of …
It would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death. Mystery of the missing frogman Sixty years ago today, on 9 May 1956 the Prime Minister, Sir …
The independence of many South American countries from Spanish and Portuguese rule followed uprisings and wars from 1806 to the mid-1820s. British diplomacy in the independence of South America was, generally, about trade. Britain was an ally with Portugal and …