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The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine

Q&A

Illustration by Glen McBeth.

Q&A When did the leopards on the royal arms of England become the lions depicted today?

Dick, Kerr Ladies football team during World War I

Q&A Why was women’s football banned?

Portrait of Pope John II

General ancient history

Q&A Why do popes change their names?

King Edward IV, who used the surname Plantagenet. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Q&A When did British kings and queens start using surnames?

A depiction of Henry VIII and his only recognised illegitimate child, Henry Fitzroy. (Illustration by Glen McBeth for BBC History Magazine)

Q&A Did Henry VIII acknowledge any of his illegitimate children?

An illustration depicting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 1865. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Q&A Could modern medicine have saved Abraham Lincoln?

Is it true that an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their own prime minister in 1672? (Illustration by Glen McBeth)

Q&A Is it true that an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their own prime minister in 1672?

A colour illustration of First World War allies, the German Reich and Austria-Hungary, featuring soldiers shaking hands, their troops and national flags, c1915. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

First World War

Q&A Who was involved in the First World War? Who was on each side?

Alfred Nobel. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Great misconceptions: There is a Nobel Prize for economics

Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, who wrote under the pen-name Nellie Bly. (Photo by Interim Archives/Getty Images)

Q&A Who was Nellie Bly?

A detail from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the death of Harold Godwinson at the battle of Hastings, 1066. Victory at Hastings did not make Duke William of Normandy king of England – at least, not immediately. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Q&A What happened after the Battle of Hastings?

Left: Historian Lucy Worsley at Kensington Palace, the childhood home of Queen Victoria, ahead of her interview for the History Extra podcast. Right: Queen Victoria sits for a portrait photograph. (Photo by W&D Downey via Getty Images)

Lucy Worsley on Queen Victoria: your questions answered

An Aztec priest performing the sacrificial offering of a living human's heart to the war god Huitzilopochtli. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

General ancient history

Q&A How many people did the Aztecs sacrifice?

A painting in the tomb of Inherkha – a priest wearing the mask of Horus is performing the opening of the mouth ritual. The purpose was to restore to the deceased the use of the senses, thus restoring life in the next world. Ancient Egyptian 20th dynasty c1186-1070 BC. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

Why was mummification used in Ancient Egypt, and why did they leave the heart in the body?

A First World War silk screened poster c1918 showing a frightening German soldier holding a bloodied bayonet. Caption reads: "Beat back the Hun with Liberty Bonds". (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

First World War

Why did the Allies call Germans ‘Huns’ during World War I?