History Today

The magazine was founded after the Second World War, by Brendan Bracken, former Minister of Information, chairman of the Financial Times and close associate of Sir Winston Churchill.^[3] The magazine has been independently owned since 1981.^[4] The founding co-editors were Peter Quennell, a "dashing English man of letters",^[5] and Alan Hodge, former journalist at the Financial Times.^[3]

The website contains all the magazine's published content since 1951. A digital edition, available on a dedicated app, was launched in 2012 and re-released with improvements in 2015.^[6]

History Review was a tri-annual sister publication of History Today magazine publishing material for sixth form level history students. Launched in 1995, the final issue of History Review was published in April 2012.^[7]

• Peter Quennell (January 1951–October 1979) and Alan Hodge (January 1951–June 1979)
• Michael Crowder (November 1979–July 1981)
• Michael Trend (August 1981–April 1982)
• Juliet Gardiner (May 1982– August 1985)
• Gordon Marsden (September 1985–October 1997)^[8]
• Peter Furtado (January 1998–August 2008)^[9]
• Paul Lay (January 2009–January 2022)^[10]
• Rhys Griffiths and Kate Wiles (July 2022–present)^[11]

Since 1997, The Longman-History Today Charitable Trust has held an annual awards ceremony at which presentations are made to those that have fostered a wider understanding of, and enthusiasm for, history. The main prize in the Longman-History Today Awards is for Book of the Year, given for an author's first or second history book.^[12] Since 2003, a prize for an undergraduate dissertation has been presented in association with the Royal Historical Society.^[13] The Trustees' Award is presented to a person or organisation that has made a major contribution to history.^[14] Past winners of the Trustees' Award include Professor David Olusoga.^[15]