This autumn, the British Museum in London is playing host to one of the most eagerly anticipated exhibitions of recent decades, as the Bayeux Tapestry makes the short hop from its permanent home in Normandy, and returns to England for the first time in nearly 1,000 years.

But as history lovers and British Museum members jostle for early access tickets, exciting new research is also coming to light that challenges some of our longest-held beliefs – both about the Tapestry itself and about the world changing events that inspired it.

In our cover story, Edmund West reveals the latest thinking about the Norman Conquest. He talks to Tom Licence, the author of an acclaimed new biography of Harold Godwinson, the doomed English king, as he attempts to separate fact from fiction and to take stock of what we really know (as opposed to simply what we think we know) about 1066 and all that.

Elsewhere, in a two-part special feature, Graham Goodlad analyses the rise of American airpower, from perilous early beginnings to Cold War dominance, as he looks at the remarkable people and amazing machines that helped the country to make the leap from biplane to B-52.

Also in this issue, Stephen Roberts considers the Boxer Rebellion, the violent anti-imperialist uprising that swept through northern China at the turn of the 20th century; while military technology expert David Porter uncovers the stories behind some of the ground-breaking innovations made by German military engineers during World War I – from ‘Big Bertha’ and the ‘Paris Gun’ to torpedo gliders and exploding motor boats.

Finally, Nigel Jones examines the curious history of the military coup, and explains why this brutal but once common method of changing governments around the world appears to have fallen from fashion in recent years.

We hope you enjoy the issue!

LAURENCE EARLE