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  1. Home
  2. Q&A

Q&A

A picture of Charles Darwin in his later years
Victorian

Q&A Did Charles Darwin coin the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’?

Henry Morgan on ship's deck in battle taking a hostage
Stuart

Q&A Did pirates really live on the island of Tortuga?

The capture of the pirate Blackbeard, 1718. Painting by JLG Ferris. One of history’s most notorious pirates, Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach almost certainly had a West Country twang because he was born in Bristol in around 1680. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)
Stuart

Q&A Did most English pirates really talk with a West Country accent?

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(Illustration by Glen McBeth for BBC History Magazine)
Victorian

Q&A What is the origin and meaning of the pirate expression ‘shiver me timbers’?

The Jolly Roger, a black flag showing a skuyll and crossbones. (Photo by Henry Guttmann Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Stuart

Q&A Did all pirates fly the Jolly Roger?

A pirate uses his cutlass to force a bound and blindfolded man to walk the plank
Stuart

Q&A Was walking the plank a real pirate punishment?

Pirates burying a treasure chest on a beach as their captain looks on
Stuart

Q&A X marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure?

A 17th century sketch of a peg-legged pirate walking with the aid of crutches
Stuart

Q&A Did any real pirates wear eyepatches or have peg legs?

Nineteenth century engraving depicting raining cats and dogs
General Early Modern

Q&A Why do we say ‘raining cats and dogs’?

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Photo of tall ship
Georgian

Q&A Who do we say 'shot across the bows'?

When were punctuation marks first used? Illustration by Glen McBeth for BBC History Magazine.
General History

Q&A When were punctuation marks first used?

Neville Chamberlain shows off the Anglo-German Declaration at Heston Aerodrome
Second World War

Q&A Peace for our time: what was written on Neville Chamberlain’s piece of paper?

A model of the so-called ‘Piltdown Man’ and a replica of its skull,
Edwardian

Q&A Who was the Piltdown Man?

An 18th-century painting depicts Alexander the Great preparing to hack through the Gordian Knot with his sword
General ancient history

Q&A What was the Gordian Knot?

Sketch of Pytheas of Massalia standing on the deck of a wooden ship. He was a Greek explorer who claimed to have visited the British Isles
Ancient Greece

Q&A Did any ancient Greeks visit Britain?

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