HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-25T16:27:50.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: This ordinary ancient Roman object is still used today – and has hardly changed
items: The ancient Greeks had six essential tips for health. How many do you do?
items: Over 70 observers watched this Stuart queen give birth. Why did they still doubt the baby was real?
items: In post-medieval Scotland, two specific crimes reveal the challenges faced by ordinary women
items: He was ancient Rome’s mightiest figure – and rumours said he had a secret affair with Julius Caesar
items: Buckingham Palace was the height of royal power – so why did Queen Victoria and Albert hate it?
items: A Victorian-era journalist snuck into an infamous asylum, and what she exposed shocked New York
items: Step inside a Roman home, and you might be surprised by what you find
items: If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate?

This ordinary ancient Roman object is still used today – and has hardly changed
type: item
date: 2026-02-25T16:27:50.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: From dealing with nits to learning the three Rs, ancient Roman childhood bore some striking similarities to the modern experience
encoded: Life for children in ancient Rome would have looked very different depending on where in the huge Roman empire you lived, what social class your family was from, and your gender. And while childhood in ancient Rome would have looked very different from the lives of children today, there were a few surprising similarities. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Bettany Hughes, a historian and author of the children’s book There Was a Roman in Your Garden, explains that “there are strange things that connect the experience of being a child in ancient Rome with the experience of being a child in the 21st century.” One overlap between childhood today and in ancient Rome is the fine-toothed nit comb, designed to remove head lice. “Nit combs are exactly the same design as they were in the ancient world – this was obviously the perfect design because it hasn't changed over the millennia,” Hughes says. But while the nit combs of today tend to be made of plastic, the ancient Romans used a different material for theirs: boxwood, a type of wood commonly used for small, carved items. “Boxwood has slight antibacterial properties, which was probably a really good thing [because] if you have nits, you scratch. Boxwood would hopefully prevent the spread of bacterial infection,” Hughes says. “The Romans were very smart, and [people in] the ancient world were much better at understanding nature and us being a part of nature than we are today,” Hughes says. Boxwood wasn’t the only plant that the Romans used for medicinal purposes. According to writings by Dioscorides, a Greek physician who was considered to be an authority on plants and plant medicine in the Roman period, oil made from walnuts was also used on children’s heads – albeit to help with alopecia or baldness, and to make the hair “pleasing.” He also recommended the “scrapings” from various gourds or squashes to help with sunstroke in children, and said that if children ate peonies, it could help to prevent kidney stones. Fam…

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The ancient Greeks had six essential tips for health. How many do you do?
type: item
date: 2026-02-19T11:28:09.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: With conflicting advice and endless new trends, it can feel hard to keep up with the modern health and wellness space. But ideas about how to live a healthy life are nothing new. Thousands of years ago, the ancient Greeks had their own list of requirements
encoded: Wellness might feel like a modern concept, attached to health-tracker apps, screen time, and green smoothies. But the concept of actively trying to lead a healthy life while keeping the body in a good state isn’t new. In fact, systems of preventative health stretch back more than 2,000 years to the medical traditions of the ancient Mediterranean world. Speaking on the Life Lessons from History series from the HistoryExtra podcast, Sasha Handley, a professor of early modern history at the University of Manchester, says there used to be a “fantastic preventative healthcare culture” based on advice that dates back to ancient Greece. As she sets out, there was a list of six lifestyle factors and behaviours that physicians, medical practitioners, and ordinary people alike knew they had to take care of for their long-term health. These were the ‘six non-naturals’ and the ancient Greeks believed that “temperance of all of those six things was key to long-term good health, according to the wisdom of the time” says Handley. The term “non-naturals” described factors external to the body that could be managed or regulated, as opposed to “naturals,” which were the body’s innate characteristics So what were these six factors, and how much do they align with modern thinking? Fresh air The first non-natural to look after was fresh air – that is, “getting enough of it and making sure that you were not taking in fetid or corrupt air,” Handley says. The Greeks thought that ‘bad air’ could cause disease and advocated for good airflow within houses to lessen exposure to stagnant air. Read more | Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide Today, we know there is no singular concept of ‘bad air’. But there are pollutants in the air that can be hazardous to people, and we do know that some diseases are airborne. Food and drink It was considered important that a person was “eating and drinking the right kinds of things for [their] bodily constitution, but also …

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Over 70 observers watched this Stuart queen give birth. Why did they still doubt the baby was real?
type: item
date: 2026-01-17T11:00:51.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: General Early Modern
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: The struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism came to a head in England when Maria of Modena gave birth to an heir with a claim to two crowns
encoded: On 10 June 1688, Maria of Modena, queen to King James II of England and VII of Scotland, gave birth to a son who was heir to both kingdoms. More than 70 observers watched it happen. But while that baby – James Francis Edward Stuart, would grow to adulthood – he would never wear either crown. Instead, scurrilous questions about the birth itself played a pivotal role in the eventual toppling of James’s rule in England. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Breeze Barrington, a cultural historian specialising in women’s history and the 17th century, explained why Maria of Modena’s labour was so closely witnessed and how it became key in ending her husband’s reign. The pressure was on Maria to produce an heir The most important job of a queen was to produce heirs. But there was extra political and religious pressure for Maria to give birth. Maria and James were Catholic, and they needed to produce a Catholic heir if they wanted to keep the ruling of England out of Protestant hands. Otherwise, the throne would go to Mary, James’ oldest legitimate child from his previous marriage, who had been brought up Protestant. Protestant factions at the English court, and in government, hoped that Maria wouldn’t have any sons who could prevent Mary from claiming the throne. “There was constant worry about England going back to Catholicism if there was a Catholic heir,” Barrington says. Read more | Your guide to the Glorious Revolution Maria had been pregnant many times before 1688, but many of those had ended in miscarriage or stillbirth; the few that survived died in infancy. “Maria was really concerned that she needed to have a son in order to secure the line of succession, so she went to Bath to take the waters in the hope that it would help her to become pregnant,” Barrington says. The reproductive health of the queen was in the interest of the nation, and so even Maria’s attempts to improve her fertility were of public concern. Members of the public went to watch her sitting in…

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In post-medieval Scotland, two specific crimes reveal the challenges faced by ordinary women
type: item
date: 2026-01-15T12:25:50.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: General Early Modern
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: What do the crimes that women were charged with in a post-medieval Scotland reveal about the lives they lived?
encoded: In the court records of post-medieval Scotland, women appear for a strikingly limited range of crimes. While men were prosecuted for theft, violence and disorder, women were charged with offences that spoke directly to their bodies and behaviour. As Dr Allan Kennedy, a historian of early modern Scottish history, explains on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, “understanding what kinds of crimes are committed and how they are responded to gives you a really good understanding of the ordering assumptions of any given society”. In early modern Scotland, those assumptions produced a sharp gender divide in the law. “There’s a very strong split between what women were being prosecuted for and what men were being prosecuted for” in Scottish courts, Kennedy says. Women were accused overwhelmingly of two crimes: witchcraft and infanticide. Both were profoundly gendered offences, shaped by contemporary anxieties about women’s morality and place within the social order. And, both crimes expose the pressures faced by ordinary women in Scotland as the country stepped into the early modern era, and the reign of the Stuarts. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-463928361-1-1ef1f6e-e1768479587395.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="Painted in 1621 by Daniel Mytens, this portrait shows James VI and I (1566–1625), a monarch deeply preoccupied with the threat of witchcraft. Convinced that witches were agents of the Devil, James personally oversaw trials in Scotland and authored 'Daemonologie' (1597), a treatise that fuelled persecution across Britain." title="James I, King of England and Scotland, 1621. Artist: Daniel Mytens" /> Witchcraft in early modern Scotaland One of the most common crime committed by women in 1600s Scotland was witchcraft. Between 1560 and 1706, approximately 6,000 people were tried for the crime in Scotland – three times the number tried in England, even though Scotland’s population was a quarter of the s…

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He was ancient Rome’s mightiest figure – and rumours said he had a secret affair with Julius Caesar
type: item
date: 2026-01-13T15:51:16.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Did Octavian, later known as the Roman emperor Augustus, have an affair with Julius Caesar? That’s precisely what Mark Antony’s propaganda wanted you to think
encoded: Politicians’ intimate lives have been used against them as far back as antiquity. In the first century BC, in the midst of a power struggle between Julius Caesar’s potential successors, the suggestion of a salacious scandal was wielded as a potent weapon. Caesar had unexpectedly named his 18-year-old great-nephew Octavian as his heir in his will – much to the chagrin of the older, more experienced, and much more powerful Mark Antony. And, as Octavian and Antony men fought for public approval and political power, theories about why Caesar had chosen Octavian ahead of all others were spread with great interest. One was the “slanderous” rumour, says Edward J Watts – professor of history at the University of California, San Dieg, who was speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, that suggested Caesar and Octavian had been in a sexual relationship. The rumour was started by Mark Antony. Although it’s not true, it illustrates the length to which he was willing to go to discredit his rival, as well as contemporary attitudes towards homosexuality. How Octavian being named heir sparked a slanderous Roman rumour “When Caesar is assassinated, everybody in Rome assumes that his heir is going to be Mark Antony,” says Watts. “So, when they open the will, they're shocked that Octavian – this kid that nobody's aware of – has been named the heir of Caesar. “Caesar had been preparing him and giving him training in Roman politics, probably because he recognised how naturally talented Octavian was. Read more | Step inside a Roman home, and you might be surprised by what you find “We don't have any idea about when or what it was that tipped Caesar off to the fact that his nephew would be a world class historical figure of incredible significance. But something did.” Octavian would later go on to become Augustus, the founder of the Roman empire, one of the most powerful Roman emperors in history, and the namesake of the month of August. While Caesar likely wasn’t expecting Octavian to take h…

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Buckingham Palace was the height of royal power – so why did Queen Victoria and Albert hate it?
type: item
date: 2026-01-10T10:45:27.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had to battle to turn Buckingham Palace into the iconic royal residency that it serves as today
encoded: For most young married couples, moving into a new house represents an exciting new start. But for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, their newlywed bliss was marred by their cold, smelly, disorganised new home: Buckingham Palace. Today Buckingham Palace is synonymous with the British monarchy, but this was not always the case. “It’s only in the 20th century [that we get] Buckingham Palace as we know it today,” says Kate Williams, speaking on an episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series: Royal Residences: Secrets and Scandals. Victoria and Albert were the first monarchs to use it as their primary residence, and it took substantial work to turn it into a home fit for a queen. Before Victoria, Buckingham Palace wasn’t an official royal residence Buckingham House first passed into the royal family’s ownership in 1761. It was originally intended only to be a retreat for Queen Victoria’s grandmother, Queen Charlotte, who loved the house and raised 14 of her 15 children there, including Victoria’s father. It officially became known as a palace from the 1790s, but St James’ Palace continued to be the main royal residence. The royal family steadily began to spend more and more time at Buckingham Palace, though it would never become the official residence of George IV and William IV – Victoria’s uncles – either. In fact, William IV thought of it as “something of a white elephant” that he was “stuck with”, Williams says. He tried to pass it on by offering it as a new Parliament building when the Palace of Westminster burned down in 1834, but MPs rejected it as too dingy. Nevertheless, work was slowly being done on the palace to expand and renovate it. The main phase of this work was finally finished in May 1837. By this time, St James’s Palace had become increasingly less desirable. The area around the main residence had been built up, so there was less privacy available for royals living there, and its Tudor architecture and fire damage meant it was no longer a comfortable pl…

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A Victorian-era journalist snuck into an infamous asylum, and what she exposed shocked New York
type: item
date: 2026-01-08T14:31:50.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Pioneering journalist Nellie Bly went undercover to expose the shocking conditions inside an infamous Victorian-era asylum in New York
encoded: In autumn 1887, a 23-year-old woman checked into a temporary boarding house for working women in New York City. She immediately alarmed the other residents: she didn’t sleep for days, and insisted that she didn’t remember who she was. But for all that it looked as if she might be in need of psychiatric support, the woman wasn’t experiencing any mental ill health. She was, in fact, a journalist. And she was trying to get herself admitted to a psychiatric unit for a story. Elizabeth Jane Cochran, better known by her pen name Nellie Bly, was working for the New York World newspaper, reporting on the conditions inside the infamous Woman’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in NYC’s East River. The resulting article and book would shock America, and lead to reform. But it also helped to boost Bly’s reputation usher in a new style of sensationalist investigative reporting that would come to be known as ‘stunt journalism’. She became a “proper bona fide celebrity, in a way that almost no journalists of the 19th century were,” explains Dr Bob Nicholson, a historian of Victorian media and popular culture at Edge Hill University, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast about how the story unfolded. How Nellie Bly tricked psychiatric doctors Soon after starting to alarm her fellow boarding house residents, Bly was examined by the police, a judge and doctors at a hospital. “She had the challenge of trying to convince people that she was mad, but not to also terribly mistreat her. [Eventually] the judge sent her to a hospital in New York to be examined. And from there, they were absolutely convinced she's mad. Every doctor was 100 per cent certain,” Nicholson says. Read more | What was life like for 'ordinary' Victorians? “They then send her to Blackwell's Island, which is a small island in the river between Manhattan and Queens.” Her employer, the New York World, promised to retrieve her in ten days – meaning that “for those ten days, she was entirely at the mercy of the people …

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Step inside a Roman home, and you might be surprised by what you find
type: item
date: 2026-01-06T10:45:21.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: What did Roman houses look like, and how did they vary depending on a person's social status? Even with some considerable archaeological biases, there's a lot that historians have pieced together
encoded: The people of ancient Rome lived in a wide range of housing, from grand urban mansions to crowded flats and makeshift dwellings attached to shops. Where and how someone lived depended on geography, social status and wealth – but Roman housing across the social spectrum looked very different from anything built to modern regulations. On an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, Hannah Platts, a senior lecturer in ancient history and material culture at Royal Holloway, University of London, explained what ancient Roman homes would have been like for different members of society. However, as with many things in history, there’s one big bias: historians know the most about the wealthy when it comes to Roman houses. Large and better-build homes survive far better in the archaeological record than modest dwellings, but that’s not the only reason. “Archaeologists were very keen to dig out the big and the lavish – or indeed to dig out the urban – because that’s where they would find the mosaics, the big structures and the statues,” Platts explains. But that doesn’t mean that historians haven’t learned plenty about Roman homes. Here are three essential facts you need to know about Roman housing, with expert insight from Platts. The houses of wealthier Romans had lots of different rooms A wealthy Roman’s house could have 50 rooms or more. They tended to be multifunctional, but there were certain rooms that were found in most of the bigger houses. On first walking into a Roman house, you’d be greeted by an atrium. Read more | He was ancient Rome’s mightiest figure – and rumours said he had a secret affair with Julius Caesar “An atrium is like a front hall today – it's where you would walk in and receive guests,” Platts says. “It had a very important architectural feature within it: a hole in the ceiling.” This hole allowed natural light in as well as rain, which would collect in a basin on the floor of the atrium, called an impluvium. This was designed to help to cool the buildi…

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If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate?
type: item
date: 2025-11-27T13:08:17.000Z
creator: Serafina Kenny
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: The people of ancient Rome didn’t have access to modern science, but they still developed complex – and incredibly intuitive – theories on how nutrition worked
encoded: Macronutrients, calories, and antioxidants all seem like very modern concepts, and, today, we certainly know a lot more about nutrition than the ancient Romans did. But while the Romans didn’t understand the science as well as we do now, they absolutely had an intuitive understanding of many of the key concepts behind how best to fuel ourselves. Across the Roman empire, ancient thinkers developed a sophisticated theory of nutrition which allowed them to understand some of the basic principles behind the science of food and diet long before the discovery of recommended daily allowances and other modern standards. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Dr Claire Bubb, assistant professor in the study of the ancient world at New York University, explains that “there are parallel ideas [in ancient Roman thinking] that are expressed with different words, observing some of the same things, but within a totally different theoretical construct of how food and nutrition works.” The Ancient Roman theory of nutrition was surprisingly intuitive Roman ideas about nutrition centred on the blood. They generally thought that food went into the digestive system after it was eaten, and then broken down. Then, “the bits that are useless, we would excrete”, Bubb explains. “But anything in food that could potentially be relevant to our bodies, we would digest and turn into blood. Read more | He was ancient Rome’s mightiest figure – and rumours said he had a secret affair with Julius Caesar “So your food becomes your blood and then your blood becomes any part of your body that it needs to – the building block of your body,” she says. “Say if I'm wearing down my muscles because I'm using them all the time, the blood will go to the muscles, and it'll build new muscle.” Romans classified foods by their qualities, not their nutrients The ancient Romans associated different properties of foods with different impacts on the body, whether that was healing or strengthening. Rather than thinking a…

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