History
All our coverage of history.
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowAmerica before the Holocaust: from the lynching of Leo Frank to immigration quotas
From the Leo Frank case to the fate of Jewish refugees, how did antisemitism manifest itself in the United States before the Second World War?
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowHebron, 24 August 1929: the massacre that uprooted a four-century-old Jewish community
What happened in Hebron in August 1929? This account traces the massacre of Jewish residents, the help given by Arab neighbours and the evacuation of the survivors.
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowHow the Soviet Union helped bring Israel into being: Gromyko at the UN, Czech arms and a break in relations
From the UN vote on the partition of Palestine to arms deliveries from Czechoslovakia, how did the Soviet Union put its support for Israel into practice in 1947 and 1948?
NewsIn Paris, historians revisit Raul Hilberg, from the printed page to the screen in Shoah
A Paris conference marking the centenary of Raul Hilberg’s birth examines how he revised his book and how he worked with filmmaker Claude Lanzmann.
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowThe departure of Jewish communities from Arab countries and Iran in the 20th century
From Iraq to Morocco and Iran, violence, changes to nationality laws and organised migration transformed Jewish communities in the course of the 20th century.
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowThe Doctors’ Plot: antisemitism in Stalin’s final years, 1948–1953
On 13 January 1953, Pravda published false accusations against nine doctors. The Soviet news agency TASS implicated the Joint, an American Jewish organisation.
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowThe Mufti of Jerusalem meets Hitler: what the documents say
On 28 November 1941, Hitler received the Mufti of Jerusalem in Berlin. What does the German record establish about their meeting and its consequences?
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion: how history’s most widely circulated forgery survived
How were the Protocols of the Elders of Zion exposed as a forgery? The trail leads back to Maurice Joly’s pamphlet and the investigation The Times published in 1921.
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowThe world’s Jewish population stood at 15.8 million in 2025, below its 1939 level
In 2025, the world’s Jewish population remained smaller than in 1939. Where do those 15.8 million people live, and how do demographers count them?
In depth · What you probably didn’t knowWhere does the name Palestine come from? A word’s history, from the Philistines to the PLO
The Philistines, Herodotus, the caliphs, the Ottomans, the British Mandate and the PLO. What has “Palestine” meant over the centuries, and what can a name prove?