Painting of a European marketplace

Europe

Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster

What was the Chernobyl Disaster?

The first modern Olympics at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens

The first modern Olympics: what happened at the 1896 games?

French Revolution Quiz – test your knowledge with our history quiz

QuizHow much do you know about the French Revolution?

Are revolutions doomed to failure?.

Medieval romances were sometimes considered subversive material. This scene from the Roman de la Rose, written in the 13th century, depict two lovers. In later centuries, it was said romances “inflamed beastly and filthy desire”

The Mills & Boon of the Middle Ages? Unpicking the mysteries of medieval romances.

Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle

Q&AWho wrote the French national anthem?

Napoleon portrait by Jacques-Louis David shows is perhaps the most famous painting of the French emperor with one hand tucked out of sight

Why do Napoleon’s portraits often show him with one hand inside his shirt? The story of the French emperor’s missing hand…

Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier’s painting portrays the Declaration of the Rights of Man

How progressive was the French Revolution?

Robespierre is guillotined on 28 July 1794. Had he died two years earlier, his name would now be associated with liberty and equality, argues Marisa Linton. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Robespierre: man of terror

Kissing the Blarney Stone: a women hangs over the precipice with the aid of a friend as she attempts the feat at Blarney Castle in 1935

What is the Blarney Stone, where did it come from and why do people kiss it?

French Revolution podcast episodes

A late 18th-century painting depicting the execution of Marie Antoinette in 1793. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The smile revolution against the Reign of Terror.

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

Guillotined in the French Revolution: the bloody story through 7 severed heads

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waves to the crowd at Heston Airport and declaims "Peace in our Time" after returning from signing the Munich Agreement. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Second World War

Did appeasement cause the Second World War?

Camille and Lucile Desmoulins

How the architects of the 'Terror' after the French Revolution ended up among its victims.

Antony and Cleopatra meet for the first time

What if...Antony and Cleopatra had won the battle of Actium?.

The vanquishers of the Bastille before the Hôtel de Ville, 14 July 1789. Found in the Collection of Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

What triggered the French Revolution?.

The decapitation machine now known as the guillotine was not a French invention and wasn't invented by Joseph Guillotin. (Image by Getty Images)

Q&ADid the French invent the guillotine?

A bust of Marcus Aurelius and a detail on Marcus Aurelius’s column in Rome

Marcus Aurelius: Rome’s reluctant killer.

The Second Battle of Copenhagen (or the Bombardment of Copenhagen) in 1807, the spire of the Church of Our Lady on fire, watercolour by Christofer Willem Eckersberg (1783-1853). Napoleonic Wars, Denmark, 19th century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Britain’s illegal war: the story of the battle of Copenhagen.

The Medici: everything you wanted to know.

A contemporary illustration of the Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 – an event that helped create the idea of 'revolution' as we know it today. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Fighting for freedom: the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution

The Cold War battle for Berlin.

From left to right: Queen Isabella of Castile; French regent Anne de Beaujeu; and Catherine of Aragon. (Photos by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/DeAgostini/Imagno/Getty Images)

Game of Queens: when women ruled Renaissance Europe

A portrait of Henry VII, the first Tudor king of England, by Michiel Sittow. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Medieval monarchy timeline: from the Norman Conquest to the Tudors

Eleanor of Woodstock, eldest daughter of Edward II, whom you can read more about in the April 2019 issue of BBC History Magazine. Medieval princesses had more agency than we might think says historian Kelcey Wilson-Lee. (Image by Alamy)

7 things you didn’t know a medieval princess could do

5 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Plantagenets

Eleanor of Aquitaine depicted in a 12th-century prayer book

The real Eleanor of Aquitaine: 5 myths about the medieval queen

How to be a medieval queen: the realities of being a royal woman in the Middle Ages

Brothers in arms Louis IX on his way to the Seventh Crusade, 1248. The French king kept his three brothers onside – preventing any potential family infighting – by providing them with huge lordships. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

How to run a medieval dynasty: survival secrets of ruling royal families.