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A joint Franco-Native Indian raid left 56 residents of Deerfield, a small township in north-western Massachusetts, dead. (Alamy)

America: Brave new world or accident?.

Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth Armstrong-Jones (centre) – the daughter of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon – was born seventh in line to the throne. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Daily Express/Getty Images)

7 royal babies who were once seventh in line to the throne.

How historically accurate are film portrayals of Jesse James?.

Nationalist troops escort captured Republican militia during the Spanish Civil War. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The Spanish Civil War: an avoidable tragedy.

A young visitor looks at a painting depicting the Amritsar Massacre

Amritsar: day of shame.

A French print by the Thierry bothers depicting the appearance of the landscape and inhabitants of the Moon

How to carry off a great hoax.

Perkin Warbeck, an imposter and pretender to the English throne, being humiliated in the stocks before his execution in 1499. Warbeck was used by Henry VII’s Yorkist enemies in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. (Getty Images)

Imposters in history: 16 famous con-artists and pretenders.

A Royal Air Force fighter squadron 'scrambles' after receiving the signal to engage the enemy during the Battle of Britain. (Photo by William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

A brief history of the Royal Air Force.

This 16th-century woodcut depicts King James VI at the North Berwick witch trials, the case that first sparked his obsession with hunting. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

James VI and I: the king who hunted witches.

Scottish soldier and Field Marshal Douglas Haig (1861 - 1928) visiting the troops during the First World War. (Central Press/Getty Images)

First World War

Field Marshal Haig: a man much misunderstood?

An ancient Roman relief shows a midwife delivering a baby. Many midwives had other occupations, and undertook the task as a contribution to their community. (Wellcome Images)

Call the (Roman) midwife

Towards the end of the third century BC, the First Emperor of China sought to make his new state immortal by shielding it with what would be the earliest predecessor to the Great Wall. (Photo by Jean-Luc PETIT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

A brief history of border walls – from 2,000 BC to Trump’s Mexico wall.

Passengers reading a newspaper while waiting to disembark from the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury, having sailed from Jamaica, taken by an unknown photographer for the Daily Herald newspaper, 21 June 1948. "The Windrush scandal would have been inconceivable if we knew that those we are deporting not only helped to build the welfare state but were either born as, or to subjects of, the British state", says Professor Kehinde Andrews. (Photo by Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty Images)

Do we need to decolonise history? And if so, how?.

An illustration depicting the procession to the House of Commons to deliver People's Charter to government in 1842. (Photo by Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

A brief history of Chartism

Queen Victoria with her children and grandchildren. Kaiser Wilhelm II is pictured left in the front row. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

Friends, family and rivals: Queen Victoria and the European empires

BBC History Magazine’s ‘ordinary’ people tweet: a response

Prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

5 myths of the Second World War's Great Escape.

The legendary Varangian (Viking mercenary) Rurik and his brothers arrive in Staraya Ladoga. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Global Vikings: how the impact of the raiders and traders went far beyond Britain.

Falkner Street, Liverpool in the 1960s. A house on this road was the star of a 2018 BBC series. Image by Nick Hedges

David Olusoga on house histories: "Our homes are often the sites of great dramas and tragedies".

"It was in Ireland that King John revealed himself as a monster," writes Nicholas Vincent. (Image by Alamy)

King John: the making of a medieval monster.

Pocket-sized paintings: Elizabethans in miniature.

A rocky relationship: Eleanor of Woodstock with her husband, Reginald II of Guelders. (Photo by Alamy)

The medieval rebel princesses.

A painting of the Amritsar massacre. While Churchill described the killings as "without precedent", MP Benjamin Spoor said: "Amritsar is not an isolated event, any more than General Dyer is an isolated officer." (Photo by AKG Images)

The Amritsar massacre: the British empire's darkest day.

Clifford's Tower stands on the site where around 150 Jews took their own lives rather than renounce their faith, in 1190. (Photo by Dreamstime)

The persecution of Jews in medieval England.

The ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus, which boasts superb acoustics and aesthetics. (Photo by Alamy)

My favourite place: the Peloponnese, Greece

A c1830 portrait of the scandalous but sublimely talented Lorenzo da Ponte. (Photo by Alamy)

My history hero: Katie Derham chooses Lorenzo Da Ponte.

(Photo by Alamy)

Brexit lessons from history.

Comedian Rhona Cameron and political activist Peter Tatchell help to hold a banner at an LGBT Pride event in London, 1998. (Photo by Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The historians’ view: is the world finally waking up to transgender issues?.

Are we returning to an age of political extremes? (Illustration by Davide Bonazzi for BBC World Histories Magazine)

The big questionAre we returning to an age of political extremes?.

British military behind a barricade in Dublin, 1916. (Photo by ullstein picture via Getty Images)

Bullets and ballot boxes: a history of Anglo-Irish relations since the Easter Rising.