Benito Mussolini

Italy

A women with a shocked face next to a calendar with the date of Friday the 13th

Q&AWhy is Friday 13th unlucky?

Pope Franics waves to the crowd from a wheelchair

General History

How are popes elected? Here's what happens after a pope dies

An ancient bas-relief from Capri depicts Tiberius – the second Roman emperor – and his lover. His scandalous reputation owes much to the work of Suetonius.

Monsters of Rome: do emperors such as Nero and Caligula deserve their reputations?

The assassination of Julius Caesar on the 'Ides of March'.

Q&AWhy do we need to beware the Ides of March?

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo: the Renaissance polymath who transformed Western art

A hill to die on: why the Allies almost failed in the battle of Monte Cassino in WW2

The ancient Roman goddess Venus with the gods Vulcan and Cupid, in a painting by Italian artist Sebastiano Ricci (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Roman gods and goddesses: 17 of the most important deities of ancient Rome

Jack O'Connell as Paddy Mayne in SAS Rogue Heroes season 2

Second World War

SAS Rogue Heroes season 2 preview: "They’re very much thumbing their noses at authority"

Caracalla and Geta: the real lives of the mad emperors of Gladiator II

Gladiators do battle in a c320 AD mosaic, housed in the Borghese Gallery in Rome

Blood, guts and spectacle: 6 shocking events from the history of ancient Roman gladiators

A cup depicting a male couple making love

The boy that emperor Nero made his ‘wife’: what the tragedy of the castrated Sporus tells us about homosexuality in ancient Rome

A section of the Via Flaminia – the ancient route linking Rome with Rimini – in Fossombrone (Photo by karayuschij/Getty Images)

“Roman roads turn up so often” | Catherine Fletcher on what the Romans did for European transport networks

Illustration of the Circus Maximus

Fast, dangerous and bloody: inside the Circus Maximus, the home of Roman chariot racing

Portrait of Catherine de Medici, also known as the Serpent Queen

Catherine de MediciThe life, death and legacy of the 'Serpent Queen'

Italian Galileo Galilei.

How Galileo Galilei took on the church and changed the universe

History's greatest cities: Venice

An image depicting St Valentine

Saint ValentineWho was the patron saint of love and lovers?

A fight between two Gladiators, in mosaic

What were the lives of gladiators like in ancient Rome?

A photo of Mary Beard, smiling and looking towards the camera, standing between open gates.

Reviving Roman voices: Mary Beard on the remarkable life of one woman

A 1948 photograph of the House of Epidius Rufus in Pompeii. The structure had to be rebuilt after being damaged by Allied bombs during WWII (Photo by SuperStock/Alamy Stock Photo)

How were Pompeii and Herculaneum discovered?

An 18th-century artwork depicting the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius from across the Bay of Naples (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

PompeiiA timeline of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

What can the streets of Pompeii reveal about daily life in ancient Rome?

A 19th-century depiction of the market of Pompeii

PompeiiWhat was life like before the eruption of Vesuvius?

A 17th-century engraving of the Mount Vesuvius eruption of AD 79, by Athanasius Kircher (Photo by Shawshots/Alamy Stock Photo)

Your ultimate guide to Pompeii, plus 8 fascinating facts about the ancient Roman city

A relief on Trajan's Column shows Roman troops crossing the Danube during the war against the Dacians. Victory was the framework upon which Pax Romana was built (Photo by akg-images/Erich Lessing)

The Pax Romana: how the Romans maintained peace at the point of a sword

Fulvia gleefully posing with Cicero’s severed head, in an 1898 painting by Pavel Svedomsky. Whether or not she pierced his tongue with hairpins is the subject of debate (Photo by CBW / Alamy Stock Photo)

Fulvia: the maligned wife of politicians who made herself the power broker of ancient Rome

Illustration of Spartacus, the escaped gladiator who became a leader in the Third Servile War, and his comrades using vines to abseil down the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in preparation of a surprise attack.

The Servile Wars: Spartacus & the rebellions that threatened the Roman Republic

A painting by Vincenzo Camuccini depicting the death of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

The death of Caesar: do we know the whole story?

Episode 3Master of his fate

Episode 5The dogs of war