assassination

What doesn’t kill Trump makes him stronger

16 September 2024 9:16 am

As if there hadn’t been enough drama in America in 2024, Donald Trump has survived another assassination attempt. The attempted…

The assassination of Georgi Markov bore all the hallmarks of a Russian wet job

6 July 2024 9:00 am

The Bulgarian dissident sailed too close to the wind with his revelations about Tudor Zhivkov in 1978, provoking the dictator to enlist Russian help in eliminating him

How much would your family stump up for your ransom?

16 March 2024 9:00 am

Researching The Price of Life, Jenny Kleeman interviews Stephen Collet, who describes haggling for a year with the Somali pirates who kidnapped his sister in October 2009

Who planned Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson’s murder?

30 July 2022 9:00 am

Until very recently, political assassination was a mercifully uncommon occurrence in British politics, though that has changed. Previously when such…

‘It was all a fairy tale’: Lina Heydrich’s description of the Holocaust

4 June 2022 9:00 am

There have been many biographies of Reinhard Heydrich, the cold, cynical head of the SS in the Third Reich, but…

After Aberfan, clairvoyants had a field day

4 June 2022 9:00 am

In the wake of catastrophe, however random or unpredictable, one of the first things people can be relied upon to…

Lasting infamy: Booth, by Karen Joy Fowler, reviewed

12 March 2022 9:00 am

Were it not for an event on the night of 14 April 1865, John Wilkes Booth would be remembered, if…

Ahmad Shah Massoud was Afghanistan’s best hope

11 September 2021 9:00 am

Ahmed Shah Massoud was described as ‘the Afghan who won the Cold War’. While famous in France (he was educated…

Why Haiti's president was assassinated

14 July 2021 4:01 pm

There was a time when Haiti was at the centre of the New World. It was one of the richest…

The ruthless politics of Pakistan — and the curse of being a Bhutto

7 November 2020 9:00 am

Hours after Benazir Bhutto arrived back in Pakistan on 18 October 2007, two bombs exploded near the bullet-proof truck carrying…

Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination was one of the century’s blackest farces

26 October 2019 9:00 am

The story of Jamal Khashoggi’s death is well known. A prominent Saudi journalist, he walked into his nation’s consulate in…

Why have the Swedes been incapable of finding Olof Palme’s murderer?

5 October 2019 9:00 am

Any Swede old enough to remember knows where they were when their prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated. On 28…

Grand Duke Francesco I de Medici may have been poisoned with arsenic by his brother Ferdinando. Portrait by Agnolo Bronzino

The age of chivalry was an age of devilry

5 January 2019 9:00 am

Agatha Christie’s spirit must be loving this poisonous new historical entertainment. Eleanor Herman has already enjoyed the success of Sex…

Senior Nazis inspect the wreckage of the Wolf’s Lair after the failed Stauffenberg plot, July 1944.

Why didn’t they try harder to assassinate Hitler?

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Awareness of German opposition to Hitler is usually limited to Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s attempt to blow up the wretched…

The Shape of the Ruins, by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, reviewed

16 June 2018 9:00 am

What makes Colombia remind me of Ireland? It’s not only the soft rain that falls from grey skies on the…

Florence's black Medici prince: a drama worthy of Shakespeare

7 May 2016 9:00 am

The life – and violent death – of a very unusual Renaissance prince has Alex von Tunzelmann enthralled

Liars, stalkers and snipers populate in the latest crime novels

30 January 2016 9:00 am

We fully expect con artists to be caught in a sting themselves, but even with that thought constantly in mind…

The American who dreamed of peace for the Arabs – but was murdered in their midst

31 May 2014 9:00 am

‘Arabist’ is fast becoming an archaism. Perhaps it is already one. These days the word conjures up enchanting visions of…

The many attempts to assassinate Trotsky

4 January 2014 9:00 am

Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov, is a retired chemist in his early eighties. I met him not long ago in…

The wounded Kennedy – and the people who gave him strength

23 November 2013 9:00 am

Ten years ago, a determined historian transformed our picture of John F. Kennedy. Robert Dallek had finally got his hands…

Taki: Why JFK wouldn't have steered clear of Vietnam if he had lived

16 November 2013 9:00 am

Everyone’s doing it, so I might as well jump in too. After all, I knew so many of the people…