France

c1400, English troops use siege towers to capture a French town during the Hundred Years' War between England and France. Original Artwork: An illumination from Froissart's Chronicles. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

7 facts about the Hundred Years’ War

Detail from the Bayeux tapestry, which depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

10 medieval dates you need to know

German prisoners traipse past Allied anti-aircraft positions near Méricourt-l'Abbé, August 1918. The battle of Amiens fired the starting-gun on a succession of Allied triumphs on the western front that would end in ultimate victory on 11 November. (Photo by Alamy)

First World War

The battle that broke the Germans

From The Library

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting a naked man with an erection reaching out towards a naked woman, who is covering both her face and her pudenda with her hands. (© Bayeux Museum)

The Bayeux Tapestry with knobs on: what do the tapestry’s 93 penises tell us?

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Norman conquest of England in 1066. (Photo by DEA/M. SEEMULLER via Getty Images)

The Bayeux Tapestry now and in the future

General Sir Douglas Haig (left) and Sir Henry Rawlinson are largely to blame for the failure of the battle of the Somme, says historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. (Photos by Hulton Archive/Getty Images and Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

First World War

The British generals whose infighting lost the battle of the Somme

French cuirassiers charging a British infantry square at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815 (1906). From Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Vol. V. (Cassell and Company, Limited, London, Paris, New York & Melbourne, 1906). Artist P Jazet.(Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

How the French won Waterloo (or think they did)

Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde in 'The Happy Prince'. "The image of Wilde in Paris at the end of the 19th century is full of fantasy and sadness, tragedy and humour," says Everett. (Lionsgate)

The Happy Prince: Rupert Everett on Oscar Wilde’s life in exile

Norman cavalry on the charge in the Bayeux Tapestry. (Image by Bettmann/Getty Images)

Second World War

Why the Nazis fell in love with the Bayeux Tapestry

From The Library

Winston Graham’s central relationship – between the gentlemanly Ross Poldark and Demelza Carne, an illiterate young kitchen maid – is highly unusual. But was there a real ‘Ross and Demelza’ in history? (Photo by Mammoth Screen/BBC)

Poldark series 3 recap – what happened and what is the real history behind the hit TV series?

British troops move on the Normandy shore from their landing craft on June 6, 1944 during the D-Day invasion of German occupied France during World War II. (AP Photo)

Second World War

D-Day: a resounding success for the Allies

Charles Cundall’s painting ‘The Withdrawal From Dunkirk, June 1940’. (Photo by IWM via Getty Images)

Second World War

9 things you (probably) didn’t know about Dunkirk

A portrait of Anne Boleyn. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Anne Boleyn: a 16th-century feminist?

A portrait of actress Nell Gwynn, longtime mistress to King Charles II.

From Nell to Meghan: 10 romances between actors and royals