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When I started working on the newly revamped India, Raj and Empire resource, I expected to find within the material most if not all of the classic elements of colonialism and empire. But what I found most interesting, when digging deeper into the documents, was the vast amount of in-fighting, conflict and corruption going on in the boardrooms and dining salons of the East India Company officials.

The Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reform, included in the Adam Matthew resource Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900, was the foremost publication of the hydropathy movement in the antebellum United States. Hydropathy, which advocated the internal and external application of water to the body as a means to promote health, happiness, and longevity, was one of several alternative medical practises which gained popularity in America before the Civil War. These “nature cures” appealed to those wary of the increasingly liberal use by mainstream physicians of vigorous and invasive techniques such as bloodletting and purging.

In January 2017 people across the world joined peaceful demonstrations protesting the inauguration of Donald Trump and marching in support of causes widely feared to be under threat in his new administration.

Two hundred years ago the massive warehouses and imposing façade of East India House were a constant reminder to onlookers of the power and influence of the East India Company in London.

One of the many good things about living in a place like Britain, where lots of documented stuff has been going on in a small space for a long time, is that wherever you go there’ll be some historical notable who’s been there before you. Last summer I was wandering around the Cotswolds and passed through Daylesford, for many years owned, I discovered using the power of the guidebook, by Warren Hastings, perhaps the most notorious figure in the East India Company at the height of its power and the penultimate man to be impeached before the British Parliament.

This 1956 photograph captures a smiling couple with their four children, all dressed in their Sunday best. This is not your average white middle-class family, however. Paul Billie and his wife were members of the Mississippi Choctaw Tribe, who relocated to Chicago in 1953.

Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981 covers an extraordinary number of topics and events, but one that has captured the world’s imagination for almost four decades is also extensively analysed – the Iranian hostage crisis.

You might expect the minutes of the meetings of the Court of Directors to be rather dull administrative records. But they are in fact the source of many fascinating human stories. The Directors were responsible for a mighty organisation, but they always made time to consider the requests of individuals who approached them for help, no matter where they fitted into the social hierarchy.

What do you get if you mix a drunk Matron, a dummy sailor, and a foghorn? No this isn’t another awful Christmas cracker joke, but it is the wonderful combination of elements that make up Sarah Stephens’ very humorous account of Christmas Day aboard the Cardigan Castle emigrant ship. Found within the Migration To New Worlds Collection, Stephens’ account of her voyage to New Zealand in 1876 not only highlights the dangers and difficulties endured by emigrants aboard ship, but gives a unique account of Christmas Day that is both compelling and full of festive fun.

It’s difficult to imagine what Christmas day was like in 1914 for soldiers on the front lines in France, Belgium and Germany. We know that the horrors of war didn’t stop, that fighting continued in many parts and that the unofficial truces were opportunities to bury the dead. But we’ve also heard stories of carols sung across the trenches and football games, and we know that during that Christmas – and Christmases for years afterward – soldiers received a small but very special gift.

President Roosevelt famously declared December 7th 1941 ‘a date which will live in infamy’. As war raged across Europe, and America - the ‘giant’ - slept on, imperialist forces in Japan plotted a devastating strike on Pearl Harbor. Today marks the 77th anniversary of the deadly attack on that sleepy Hawaiian naval base, an event that would ultimately turn the tide of the Second World War.

1688: The Glorious Revolution. For many of us, these words bring to mind the overthrow of the tyrannical Catholic King James II and the happy arrival of William of Orange and his Queen, Mary. What few of us immediately consider is the impact of this change in regime upon far-flung colonies across the Atlantic.

With last week’s news of the death of Fidel Castro and Cuba’s nine days of mourning underway, I thought it would be fitting to explore Adam Matthew’s upcoming Socialism on Film resource to discover how the divisive leader and his legacy have been captured on film. I soon found my answer in the 1961 documentary Island Ablaze, a powerful propaganda film which tells the story of the Cuban revolution and explores its implications for Cuba’s future generations.

Despite economic depression the 1890s had an air of optimism and progression that led social commenters to name it the “Gay Nineties”. One advance that captured both the enthusiasm and the technological advancement of this era was the booming popularity of bicycles.

Felicity Nussbaum, Distinguished Research Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles and Editorial Board member for Eighteenth Century Drama: Censorship, Society and the Stage, discusses female cross-dressing in eighteenth-century theatre.

The Paraguayan War generated significant interest in Europe, and the Foreign Office in London compiled much of the traffic it received into a printed file, for easy future reference. This volume, digitized as part of Adam Matthew Digital’s Confidential Print: Latin America 1833-1969, contains some fascinating insights into the Comte d’Eu’s role in the conflict – and indeed, British estimations of the Prince.

“Let’s have a moments silence,– Let’s say a pray’r or two,– Let’s give a moment of our time for the boys who fought for you;– Let’s have a moments sorrow,– Let’s pray because it’s thru, Let’s have a moments silence, For the boys who died for you.”

The 2016 contest for the US presidency, fought between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, is commonly held to be one of the most bitter and acrimonious American political campaigns in their history. Though as you can imagine, bitter and acrimonious US presidential elections are not in the least bit new in American history. Here’s one.

This week sees the release in US cinemas of Jeff Nichols’ film Loving, a dramatization of the story of interracial couple Mildred and Richard Loving whose marriage lead to their arrest under anti-miscegenation laws in Virginia in 1958. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, they appealed against the conviction and the case went to the US Supreme Court in 1967 where, in a ground-breaking decision, the convictions were overturned and all remaining anti-miscegenation laws in US states were rendered unconstitutional.

Examining the material culture of the past can help us to understand how audiences of that time might have felt about what they saw, diminishing our assumptions that we bring from the present day. Some of the most fruitful sources for this research are programmes from popular venues. At The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter we have 4000 cinema programmes, including fascinating examples from the beginnings of cinema history between 1896 and 1920.

I started working on The Lady’s Magazine: or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex (1770-1832) in the last century. 1999 wasn’t really all that long ago, I suppose, but sometimes I feel as if I have been working on the magazine forever. I say this with no sense of tedium. For much of the past fifteen years, I have been happily immersed in the embarrassment of generic riches the Lady’s Magazine presented to its loyal following of thousands of readers every month.

When we think of the role of women on the Home Front during the First World War, the images which spring to mind are inevitably those of fresh-faced city girls perched precariously on fence posts, wellies on and pitchfork in hand. Think harder and you might also have a vague recollection of countless rows of twenty-somethings handling and packing shell cases in London munitions factories; but what other jobs did women do during the First World War?

One of the greatest and most brazen of swindles known to man is in fact not very well known by many. Born in 1786, Gregor MacGregor lived a colourful life in which he exhibited all the oleaginous qualities needed to put greed before all else.

Last week I had the opportunity of seeing Ian Hislop’s and Nick Newman’s stage play based upon the true story of The Wipers Times, currently showing at the Watermill Theatre, near Newbury, 22 September – 29 October 2016. I also attended an afternoon discussion session where the co-writers were interviewed about their work and answered questions from the audience. The Wipers Times was a trench journal published by British soldiers fighting on the Ypres Salient during the First World War. It became the most famous example of trench journalism in the English-speaking world.