Q&A

Welsh flag, featuring a dragon. The red dragon of Wales dates back to Roman times. (Photo by Getty Images)

Q&A Why does the Welsh flag feature a red dragon?

Wales' fans celebrate victory at the 1957 Five Nations Tournament, France vs Wales, holding the Welsh symbol, the leek. (Photo by Universal/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

Q&A Why is the leek associated with Wales?

Portrait of Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany

Q&A Who was the Grand Old Duke of York?

Language of flowers postcard

Q&A What was floriography?

John Wilkes Booth flees the theatre after shooting US president Abraham Lincoln

Q&A Why do we say ‘your name is mud’ – and what does it have to do with Abraham Lincoln?

18th century French caricature satirising the fashion for enormous wigs

Q&A Did Rococo wigs really have mice?

A picture of Charles Darwin in his later years

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

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

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)

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

(Illustration by Glen McBeth for BBC History Magazine)

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)

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

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

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

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

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’?