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Portrait of Catherine of Aragon

Your guide to Catherine of Aragon: Henry VIII’s first wife and mother of Mary I

A sign of the devil or a miracle cure? How people felt about spiders in the Middle Ages

Second World War

Days of destiny: 5 key dates in the Battle of Britain

Prisoners of War from the Allied forces eating food after being liberated from a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Taiwan (Formosa), 1945 (Photo by Getty Images)

Second World War

Prisoners of the Japanese

Elizabeth I knights Francis Drake on his ship Golden Hind after his round-the-world voyage. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

How did Elizabeth I feel about being queen in a ‘man’s world’? | Tracy Borman explains

Latest articles

The Crown

Ahead of the fourth series of The Crown, which lands on Netflix on 15 November, we bring you the real history behind the hit show...

Queen Elizabeth II visits the Welsh mining town of Aberfan in 1966 following the disaster, and actor Olivia Colman recreates the tragic scene in series three of The Crown.

Netflix’s The Crown: the real history behind the royal drama

Princess Margaret attends the premiere of Captain Horatio Hornblower, Leicester Square, 1951. (Photo by Ron Burton/Keystone/Getty Images)

The Queen’s “rebel sister”: 8 facts about Princess Margaret

Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales (1961 - 1997) pose together during their honeymoon in Balmoral, Scotland, 19th August 1981. (Photo by Serge Lemoine/Getty Images)

Diana: the rebel princess

Cast of the Crown vs their real life counterparts. Top (right to left): actors Gillian Anderson, Olivia Colman, Emma Corrin. Bottom: Margaret Thatcher, Elizabeth II, Princess Diana. (Photos by Netflix/Getty Images)

The Crown S4 cast: which real historical figures feature in season four of Netflix’s royal drama – and what did they really look like?

Charles and Camilla, 1979

Prince Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance

King George VI and his eldest daughter, Elizabeth

The death of King George VI: what happened?

Read more about The Crown

In the news

Today’s events in historical context…

Krystyna Skarbeck, also called Christine Granville

Second World War

My history hero: Michael Morpurgo chooses Krystyna Skarbek

The figure Mulan on a silk print, c19th century

General ancient history

Mulan: the history of the Chinese legend behind the film

Japanese school girls wear protective masks to guard against the influenza outbreak, February 1920. (Photo by Getty Images)

A history of pandemics: from Spanish Flu to Covid-19

Queen Elizabeth greets the crowd from the top of a huge elephant minutely decorated during a walk to the gates of the Jaipur Palace, c1961 in Jaipur, India. (Photo by Keystone-FranceGamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The Queen and the Commonwealth: a force for international change?

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Historical Q&As

How did Spanish Flu get its name? When did our ancestors start using toilet paper? Why did the famous Crystal Palace burn down? And where was the WW1 Armistice signed? Here are the top questions about history, answered by historians and experts…

How did England react to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1751? (Illustration for BBC History Magazine)

Q&A Did the introduction of the Gregorian calendar spark riots?

King Arthur and his knights return to Camelot (Photo by: Christophel Fine Art/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Q&A Where was Camelot?

St Swithin (or Swithun). (Image by Alamy)

Q&A Who was St Swithin?

Winston Churchill gives his famous v-sign. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

From Winston Churchill to the Bengal famine: are we in denial about our role in WW2?

Anne Boleyn (left) and her daughter, Elizabeth I. (Photos by Getty Images)

What did Elizabeth I think of her mother, Anne Boleyn? Historian Tracy Borman explains

What was a drunkard's cloak used for? This illustration shows a man wearing the archaic punishment tool designed to punish habitual drinkers. (Photo by Getty Images)

Q&A What was a drunkard’s cloak used for?

Read more answers from the experts

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HistoryExtra Podcast

The latest episodes from the History Extra podcast

An official of the British East India Company riding on an elephant with an escort of foot soldiers and mounted Indian retainers, India, end of 18th century (Photo by Getty Images)

Everything you ever wanted to know about the East India Company, but were afraid to ask

Thomas Williams on the HistoryExtra podcast

Ghosts of Viking London

British author, historian, reviewer and columnist Ben Macintyre

Second World War

Ben Macintyre on Agent Sonya – the greatest female spy in history

King Arthur and a hand holding the sword Excalibur.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the legends of King Arthur, but were afraid to ask

Pectoral ornament in the form of a double headed serpent, Aztec/ Mixtec, c 1400/1521 (Photo by Getty Images)

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Aztecs, but were afraid to ask

Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex (later Harold II of England), on horseback, holding a hawk. From the Bayeux Tapestry (Photo by Getty Images)

Medieval rebellions

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Trending in the US

Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II, with her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, after their marriage in 1947. (Corbis via Getty Images)

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip: 8 milestones in their marriage

King Arthur addresses his knights in a 12th-century Arthurian manuscript now held in Rennes, France. (Photo by: Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

King Arthur: five men who made up the legendary Dark Ages king

Naming of St John the Baptist, c12th century. From a wall painting in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Medieval baby names: what were people called in the Middle Ages?

Portrait of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII

11 things you (probably) didn’t know about Anne Boleyn

Picture galleries

Explore our historical galleries covering a wide range of historical periods and topics…

This photo dated 1948 shows the devastated city of Hiroshima some three years after the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city on 6 August 1945, at the end of World War 2. Around 140,000 people, or more than half of Hiroshima's population at the time, died in the first atomic bombing – with another 70,000 people perishing in the bomb dropped over Nagasaki 9 August 1945. (Photo credit should read AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

Second World War

In pictures: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

VE Day revellers blowing party trumpets

Second World War

In pictures: jubilant VE Day street party celebrations

Keith Granville, managing director of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), holding a model of the Boeing 747 jet, with the new aircraft hangars under construction in the background, at Heathrow Airport, 17 March 1969. (Photo by Jim Gray/Keystone/Getty Images)

In pictures: the history of London’s Heathrow Airport

A family at the seaside in the 1960s.

In pictures: English life in the 1960s, photographed by Tony Ray-Jones

Latest articles

Africa Turns the Page - The Novels that Shaped a Continent/ Aminatta Forna and David Olusoga. (Uplands TV - Photographer: Nina Kropotkine- Watson)

History TV and radio in the UK: what’s on our screens in September 2020?

The 1921 Wrangel Island expedition team: Ada Blackjack, Allan Crawford, Lorne Knight, Fred Maurer, Milton Galle, and Victoria the cat. (Photo by Alamy)

Ada Blackjack: how the ‘female Robinson Crusoe’ escaped death in the Arctic

Pilgrim Fathers boarding the Mayflower

5 facts about the Mayflower

A painting of the Tudor succession

The truth about the Tudors: what 5 kings and queens were really like behind closed doors

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History Quizzes

How much do you know about history? Test out your knowledge with our quizzes...

How much do you know about the Vikings? Test your knowledge with our quiz. This mid-19th century painting shows Viking ships on the River Thames. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

History quiz: How much do you know about the Vikings?

People praying for relief from the bubonic plague, circa 1350. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Medieval quiz

(Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Tudors history quiz: test your knowledge of the dynamic dynasty

The effects of the disease known as the Black Death

History quiz: how much do you know about the Black Death?

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Portrait of King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Prince Edward. (Photo by Getty Images)

Tudor

Illustrated Medieval scene from the Romance of Lancelot

Medieval

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Victorian

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20th Century

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Painting of Henry VIII

Henry VIII

Portrait of Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria

Winston Churchill gives his famous v-sign as he opens the new headquarters of 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron of the RAAF (Royal Auxiliary Air Force) at Croydon, 1948. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Winston Churchill

Golden funerary mask of Tutankhamun, inlaid with lapis lazuli, obsidian and turquoise. (Photo By DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

Tutankhamun

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Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

Photo of Mabel Capper and Patricia Woodlock advertising a meeting, Manchester, Lancashire, July 1908

Women's history

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Sex and love

The charge of the light, battle illustration

Military history

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