"Winston Churchill's parents were both well-known figures when he was born in 1874. Consequently, from the very beginning of his life until his death over 90 years later - by which time he was himself perhaps the most famous man in the world - he was continually in the public eye. With the popularization of photography in the late 19th century and its use in newspapers and magazines this meant that he was constantly photographed, and a pictorial record...

"Nicholas became Tsar at the age of 26. Though a conscientious man who was passionate in his devotion to his country, he was weak, sentimental, dogmatic and indecisive. Ironically he could have made an effective constitutional monarch, but these flaws rendered him fatally unsuited to be the sole ruler of a nation that was in the throes of painful modernisation. That he failed is not surprising, for many abler monarchs could not have succeeded. Rather...