Marcus Delacroix

Marcus covers the conflicts and revolutions of the last three centuries and what they left behind on today's maps, laws and borders. He is happiest when a modern headline turns out to have a 200-year-old backstory.

Black and white photograph of D. F. Malan in a homburg hat and glasses stepping off a KLM airliner in the Netherlands in 1953, as a woman holding flowers greets him

In 1948 South Africa's Ruling Party Won the Most Votes and Lost Power

Marcus Delacroix · November 9, 2026

Two photographs of an early 1900s submarine telegraph cable: a length of tarred, armoured cable with a handwritten paper label, and the cut end showing the ring of steel armour wires around the core

Britain Cut Germany's Undersea Cables on the First Night of War in 1914

Marcus Delacroix · November 8, 2026

The 1812 Gerry-mander cartoon: an engraved map of an Essex County senate district drawn as a winged monster with claws and a beak

The Original Gerrymander Flipped on Its Makers in a Single Year

Marcus Delacroix · November 6, 2026

Painting of a crowded hall of men and a few women listening to a white-haired speaker at the 1840 Anti-Slavery Society Convention in London

Britain Already Paid Slavery Reparations in the 1830s, to the Slave Owners

Marcus Delacroix · November 5, 2026

Photograph of the old town of Aden, with white mosque minarets in front of the dark volcanic cliffs of the crater

Aden Fell to Britain in 1839 Over a Looted Ship and a Need for Coal

Marcus Delacroix · November 4, 2026

Photograph of British paratroopers landing at Gamil airfield near Port Said in November 1956, with smoke rising behind them

70 Years Ago Tonight, Britain and France Bombed Egypt. They Lost in a Week

Marcus Delacroix · October 31, 2026

Photochrom print of Tiflis (Tbilisi) around 1890 to 1900, showing the old fortress on its ridge above the town and the river

Lenin's Party Robbed a Bank With Bombs in 1907 and Couldn't Spend a Rouble

Marcus Delacroix · October 31, 2026

Photograph of Royal Marines lined up at English Camp on San Juan Island before leaving in 1872

Strange History

Britain and America Nearly Went to War Over One Pig and Stayed Twelve Years

Marcus Delacroix · October 30, 2026

Photograph of the Tsar Bomba fireball over Novaya Zemlya on 30 October 1961

Sixty-Five Years Ago Today the Soviets Set Off a Bomb Too Big to Use

Marcus Delacroix · October 30, 2026

Engraving from 1896 of a British cruiser firing on the sultan's palace in Zanzibar harbour, with smoke rising from the waterfront and the lighthouse behind

Strange History

The Shortest War in History Lasted 38 Minutes, and Zanzibar Was Billed for the Shells

Marcus Delacroix · October 28, 2026

Black-and-white photograph of Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres sitting side by side in the Knesset in the 1980s, Peres reading a note

Israel Is Deadlocked Again. In 1984 the Answer Was Two Prime Ministers Taking Turns

Marcus Delacroix · October 28, 2026

Black-and-white photograph of a packed crowd of men in dark suits on the floor of the London Stock Exchange, between 1910 and 1920

Big Bang at 40: The Weekend That Emptied London's Stock Exchange Floor

Marcus Delacroix · October 27, 2026

Black-and-white photograph of a worker in a hard hat on scaffolding in dry dock, inspecting the buckled hull of the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts after it struck an Iranian mine in April 1988

Before Hormuz 2026: The One-Day War the US Navy Fought Iran in April 1988

Marcus Delacroix · October 27, 2026

Photograph of Anwar Sadat, pipe in mouth, and Menachem Begin standing at a bank of microphones in the late 1970s

Israel Votes Tomorrow. In 1977 One Word on TV Ended 29 Years of Labor Rule

Marcus Delacroix · October 26, 2026

Photochrom print of Piccadilly Circus, London, in the 1890s, with horse-drawn cabs and omnibuses keeping to the left around the Shaftesbury fountain

Why Britain Drives on the Left: Napoleon, a Wagon and a Swedish Sunday

Marcus Delacroix · October 26, 2026

Photograph of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, bearded and in a dark jacket, speaking at a microphone during the 1989 campaign

Brazil Votes Today. The First Time Lula Lost a Runoff, It Took a TV Edit and a Kidnapping

Marcus Delacroix · October 25, 2026

Colour photograph of delegates seated at the United States and Austria desks in the United Nations General Assembly hall, New York, late 1960s

Fifty-Five Years Ago Tonight the UN Gave China's Seat to Beijing in One Vote

Marcus Delacroix · October 25, 2026

Photograph of the Yugoslav federal parliament building in Belgrade with flames in its windows and a crowd in front of it on 5 October 2000

Serbia Votes Tomorrow. The Last Time Its Students Beat a Strongman Took One Day

Marcus Delacroix · October 24, 2026

Photograph of three women at a polling place in 1957, one checking a book of registered voters, with a voting booth and an American flag behind them

Why Your Vote Is Secret: A Gold-Rush Colony Invented the Ballot in 1856

Marcus Delacroix · October 24, 2026

Colourised scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles, in blue, budding from an infected cell, in yellow

Ebola Was Found Fifty Years Ago in a Thermos Flask Sent From a Mission Hospital

Marcus Delacroix · October 23, 2026

The Queens Museum, the former New York City Building at Flushing Meadows where the UN General Assembly met from 1946 to 1950, photographed in 2018

Eighty Years Ago the United Nations Moved Into a Skating Rink in Queens

Marcus Delacroix · October 23, 2026

Ink cartoon from February 1962 showing two groups of men in hats and overcoats meeting on a bridge, the figures labelled Abel and Powers passing each other, under the title Better Relations Through Trade

Before Hubbard Came Home, the Cold War Traded Prisoners on a Berlin Bridge

Marcus Delacroix · October 22, 2026

Black and white aerial photograph of the colliery spoil tips on the hillside above Aberfan, with the terraced streets of the village along the left edge, from the 1967 tribunal of inquiry report

Aberfan at 60: The Coal Tip That Buried a School After Ignored Warnings

Marcus Delacroix · October 21, 2026

A 1918 American poster showing Uncle Sam shaking hands with a boy with a clock for a head, announcing that daylight saving ends on Sunday 27 October

Why We Still Change the Clocks: A Wartime Coal Measure That Never Went Away

Marcus Delacroix · October 20, 2026