Mick O'Hare
20 March 2024
A fearful thrall: The sinister legacy of the Baader-Meinhof gang
The capture of Daniela Klette has put the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, back in the headlines. Why do they still hold such fascination?
Read the full article13 March 2024
The French view of British drinking
Every summer, the locals of Arnage near Le Mans look on in bemusement as Brits descend on the village in search of booze
Read the full article07 February 2024
Deadly passion, terrible joy: The 1957 Mille Miglia
The story of the fateful real-life race that inspired Michael Mann’s Ferrari movie
Read the full article24 January 2024
A Spanish gardener in Yorkshire
Today, the man who fled the Spanish civil war for Cleckheaton would’ve been deemed part of an ‘invasion’
Read the full article22 November 2023
My first day outside of Britain
Back in 1975, the experience of travelling abroad broadened my mind – a foreign concept for Mark Francois
Read the full article18 October 2023
Last flight of the Concorde
It was the Franco-British aircraft that flew too close to the sun. But could supersonic travel now make a surprise comeback?
Read the full article30 August 2023
How the communists converted to rugby union
Links with British industry and French universities – through ‘rugger diplomacy’ – helped to turn Romania into a surprising hotbed of the sport
Read the full article30 June 2023
The women smashing motorsport’s glass ceiling
An all-female team’s battle to win the Le Mans 24-hour race and shake up a stale, male world
Read the full article14 June 2023
The seagull in space: The cosmic betrayal of Valentina Tereshkova
When the Soviet cosmonaut made her pioneering flight 60 years ago, she was supposed to usher in an era of Soviet “Gagarins in skirts”. What happened?
Read the full article07 June 2023
‘We felt unstoppable. Then the tanks arrived’
The June 1953 uprising by east Germans has become a footnote to history – but not for the few surviving eyewitnesses
Read the full article03 May 2023
The Sicilian race against danger
The Targa Florio road race pitted drivers against every imaginable danger.. including stray dogs
Read the full article17 April 2023
The ‘queen of consciousness’ on 80 years of LSD
Does the psychedelic drug have real benefits, and should it be legalised for medical use? A colleague of acid’s inventor speaks…
Read the full article05 April 2023
Many trippy returns: LSD turns 80
Is the drug that fuelled sixties counterculture due for a comeback?
Read the full article02 March 2023
Skating on thin ice
The Elfstedentocht event has been part of Dutch folklore for more than 100 years. But, thanks to climate change, it could well be over for good
Read the full article28 January 2023
Whatever happened to the Europeans who backed Brexit?
For one reason or another, they celebrated the referendum result. Nearly seven years on, have they changed their minds?
Read the full article16 November 2022
Chaos and the beautiful game
If a butterfly flaps its wings in Sumatra, who wins the World Cup in Qatar? Examining chaos theory in football
Read the full article13 October 2022
Rugby league's resistance man
After fighting the Nazis in the second world war, Paul Barrière fought to save his outlawed sport
Read the full article15 September 2022
The man who reinvented the wheel
Who really was 'The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo'?
Read the full article04 August 2022
Portraits of a Spain unknown
On Washington DC’s grand 16th Street, an outdoor photography exhibition has brought a fragment of Europe to the new world
Read the full article02 June 2022
Enduring injustice: the man wrongly blamed for motorsport's worst day
Pierre Levegh’s name is forever linked with a dreadful day almost seven decades ago. As the 70th anniversary approaches, maybe his feat deserves to step out from the shadow of the catastrophe
Read the full article21 April 2022
The English export winning over Europe
Migration and livestreaming are helping the traditionally English game gain a foothold in mainland Europe at long last
Read the full article23 February 2022
Goya and the grandad: The art theft that gripped Britain
How the battle over free TV licences for pensioners led to a daring heist in 1961 by an OAP. Possibly...
Read the full article14 February 2022
Imperial Idiocy: Could ‘Brexit opportunities’ include turning our back on the metric system?
The madness of bringing back measurements no-one understands and most of the world does not use
Read the full article10 February 2022
The forbidden game: Why there’s a French team with a name that evokes Spain in English rugby league
Catalans Dragons return to action with their eyes on going one step further than last season
Read the full article07 October 2021
The strange story of the European flag
For many, it inspires cooperation and hope... for others annoyance. But what does the European flag actually stand for?
Read the full article26 August 2021
The Disaster of Annual: The battle that still haunts Spain
Amid the bloodshed of the 20th century, it remains all but forgotten. But what became known as the Disaster of Annual, 100 years ago this summer, shaped Spain’s traumatic century.
Read the full article27 July 2021
When cold war broke out in the Olympic swimming pool
Looking back at one of the most notorious episodes in the Games' history, when sport and politics combined in ferocious violence
Read the full article10 July 2021
The war tour: When the British Lions got a lift from the Royal Navy
