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The Great Army attacks the East Anglian town of Thetford in this illuminated manuscript from 'The Life of Edmund'. Viking pikemen scale the ramparts on ladders

The secrets of the Viking Great Army

A French manuscript from c1100 shows Viking warriors sailing to Brittany. The Viking Age touched all areas of life and can still be felt today

What if...The Vikings had never left their homelands?

A sword/hammer type coin from the Danelaw

The Danelaw: is the ‘realm’ of the Vikings in Anglo-Saxon-era England a place or an idea?

Viking sailors make the long voyage across the Atlantic between Europe and America, in order to bring back timber, circa 1350. The Vikings are thought to have discovered America in around 1000 AD, but never attempted full colonization of the new land, due to the hostile natives. Painting by NC Wyeth. (Image by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"Vikings didn't wear horned helmets," plus 7 more Viking myths busted

The man who made King Alfred great

Josiah Wedgwood: the radical father of English pottery

Photograph of Mrs Beeton bracing herself against a chair while wearing a long, dark-coloured gown

The secret life of Mrs Beeton: 10 pieces of life advice from her famous Book of Household Management

Black and white drawing showing King George V using a broom to sweep away several crowns adorned with the words 'Made in Germany'.

Fake history: 3 historical untruths that shaped the world

Q&AWhat is gaol fever and how was it caused and spread?

Illustration of Hereward the Wake, the rebel who rose against William the Conqueror

Hereward the Wake: the Anglo-Saxon rebel who became William the Conqueror's nemesis

Charles and Diana on honeymoon in Balmoral

Diana: the rebel princess

8 historical reasons behind Anne Boleyn’s appearance in Princess Diana film Spencer

An illustration of the Gunpowder Plot principal conspirators, copied from a rare print published at the time (5 November 1605). (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images).

Remember remember the 5th of November: why Bonfire Night is a 400-year-old political hot potato

A very short history of bonfire night

Guy Fawkes and the men behind the gunpowder plot. Guy Fawkes, best known of the conspirators, is third from the right. (Print Collector/Getty Images)

Why did the 1605 gunpowder plot fail? 9 big questions about the conspiracy to blow up parliament

Black and white image of several African men pushing two French missionaries in a sort of chair with wheels.

Think pieceWhy history must take a stance

Londoners flee the city during the earthquake panic of April 1750. (Getty Images)

The earthquakes that rocked Georgian London (plus three more seismic events that shaped history)

Daniel Lambert in a 19th-century painting

Super-sized Georgians: why satirists were fixated with fatness

3 curious medieval ghost stories

A black and white photo of several 'matchwomen', who went on strike at the Bryant and May's factory in London in 1888.

The 1888 Matchgirls strike: how a group of East End women changed British labour history

Bulldog burners and dungboys: classifying occupations in British censuses (1841-1911)

Side-by-side portraits of Henry VIII's first two wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon.

Do we have to be ‘Team Catherine’ or ‘Team Anne’ when it comes to Henry VIII’s wives?

Alfred the Great (849–899). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Who was King Alfred the Great?

Sir Lancelot of the Lake and Queen Guinevere seen embracing by King Arthur in a medieval illustration

Tudors in love: what were the dynasty's romantic secrets?

Ira Aldridge: Shakespeare’s black Othello

Q&AWhat was clog fighting?

7 weird and wonderful Georgian beauty treatments

Gulielma Lister: the female botanist who became the queen of slime moulds

(Illustration: Clair Rossiter for BBC History Magazine)

Beans, ale & 'windy meats': surprising 17th-century aphrodisiacs

Danny Robins' paranormal cold casesAlanbrooke Hall, Belfast