Explainer

A Japanese woodblock print, c1855, depicting the mythological giant catfish Namazu, and the god Takemikazuchi subduing it with the kaname-ishi stone (Photo by Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

General History

Why is a mythical catfish to blame for earthquakes in Japan?

Maria Theresa

General Early Modern

The incredible Habsburg empress you’ve never heard of: who was Maria Theresa?

Jane Austen's grave.

Lupus or murder?What was Jane Austen's cause of death?

The hydroelectric power plants at Niagara Falls, seen in 1890, would have been a key target for the US in War Plan Red (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

War Plan Red: The secret US plan for war with Britain via Canada

The coronation of Harold Godwinson as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry

Is this toilet the ultimate Anglo-Saxon status symbol? Inside Harold II’s ‘ensuite’

Several men stand around a table in a submarine

Whiskey on the Rocks: the real story behind Soviet submarine S-363’s Cold War grounding

The Fall of the Titans, 1588-90, painting by Cornelis van Haarlem (Photo by PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

When gods go to war: what was the Titanomachy of Greek mythology?

Adolf Hitler Saluting

The history of the Hitler salute, from its dubious Roman origins to its use by the far right

Twr Mawr Lighthouse and St Dwynwen's stone cross at sunrise on Llanddwyn Island on Anglesey.

Who was St Dwynwen?The legend of the Welsh patron saint of lovers

A fragment of a tapestry showing a Viking horseman adorned in armour

The real Viking Age: when did the era of Norse expansion start and end?

Photo of King George V's funeral

The death of King George V – and why his doctor hastened his demise

Statue of William Tell, with a crossbow over one shoulder and a boy at his hip

William Tell: was the legendary Swiss hero a real person?

A spiritual swastika on a lotus background.

Second World War

Why did Hitler choose the swastika as a Nazi symbol?

An illustration of Vikings sailing on a longship across the Atlantic

General History

Who owns Greenland? Why the island's history is more complicated than you think

Ancient Egyptian pyramids against a purple starry sky

ConspiracyWere the pyramids built by aliens?

Supplies train for the Russian transported during deportation to Siberia.

Nazino was Stalin’s worst labour gulag. Its inmates knew it by another name: Cannibal Island

The outrageous heretical legend of Pope Joan, history’s only female pope

Paddy Mayne (left), a founding member of the SAS during WW2, and Jack O'Connell (right) who portrays Mayne in BBC drama SAS Rogue Heroes.

The real Paddy Mayne of SAS Rogue Heroes

Second World War

SAS Rogue HeroesThe true story behind the drama

Embalmed figure of Jeremy Bentham

“A wax head with his own hair had to suffice”: the horror of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘auto-icon’

St Paul's Cathedral photographed through the smoke after a night when the German air force bombed London

Second World War

"War's greatest picture"? Inside the night St Paul's Cathedral survived the Blitz

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as William the Conqueror in series King and Conqueror

General History

Upcoming in 2025: historical anniversaries, exhibitions and television

The Narmer Palette

“The first historical document in the world”: what exactly is on the Narmer Palette?

An illustration of the Icelandic Yule Cat

General History

The child-eating Christmas Yule Cat: what are the origins of this Icelandic folklore?

Saint Augustine in His Study. (

Why is taking your own life considered a sin?How a Christian Saint defined suicide

Thomas Cromwell shown in a c1533 portrait after Hans Holbein the Younger (Photo by Penta Springs Limited/Alamy Stock Photo)

Thomas Cromwell's death – a rapid descent from the pinnacle of power

Pedro Pascal as General Acacius in Gladiator II

Gladiator III: what could happen in a new sequel, according to Roman history

A portrait of Mary I, queen of England

Mary I: your guide to the life and rule of Henry VII's daughter – plus a timeline and 7 little-known facts

A late 19th-century image shows a group of ‘pit lasses’, employed to work at the surface of coal mines. An earlier law had explicitly banned women from working below ground. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Industrial revolution

From family to factory: women's lives during the Industrial Revolution

Smiling teenage man holds a toothbrush with toothpaste up to his mouth, with a towel draped round his shoulders

General History

Oxhooves, mouse brains and urine: the disgusting things we used to use as toothpaste