Benito Mussolini

Italy

Historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes. (Channel 5)

Eight Days That Made Rome: behind the scenes with historian Bettany Hughes

My favourite place: Florence

My history heroNick Knowles chooses Julius Caesar (100–44 BC).

Benito Mussolini with members of the Black shirt Legion

The thorns in Mussolini’s side: the anti-Fascists who opposed the Italian regime.

Verona skyline with river Adige, bridges, Santa Anastasia Church and Torre dei Lamberti or Lamberti Tower at dawn view from Castel San Pietro, Italy. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: Verona, Italy

Giuseppe Garibaldi in Naples, Italy, 1861. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

God, gangs and Garibaldi.

Roman ruins in Ancient Ostia with the tenements of Serapide

FeatureFive facts about Roman insulae

A Roman relief showing a market scene

A handbook to shopping in ancient Rome.

Roman silver denarius coins AD 72 till 200 and were offered up at the beginning of the 4th century AD, from the Nydan Bog archaeological site. (Photo by Clare Rowan)

From bes to Bitcoin: alternative currencies in the ancient Roman world.

Yangguan Museum and a statue of Zhang Qian. (Getty Images)

Global encounters of the ancient kind

Bologna, Italy. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: Bologna, Italy

A portrait of Anne Boleyn

Did Eustace Chapuys really despise Anne Boleyn?

A combo picture of two images taken 13 August 2002 at Cairo Museum shows a foot of a mummy missing its big toe and beside it a prosthetic toe of leather and wood to replace the amputated real one. (Photo by Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images)

Q&AHow long have people used prosthetic limbs?.

A marble bust of the Emperor Hadrian who ruled from AD 117 to 138

Hadrian's travels.

A group of five marble busts of typical early Roman citizens. The empire expanded by absorbing the peoples it defeated, giving rights and obligations to former outsiders. (Photo by Gjon Mili/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Mary Beard on why Rome ruled the world.

A canal in Venice, Italy

My favourite place: Venice, Italy

Books interview with Mary Beard.

A 1985 production of 'Julius Caesar'. For all their despotism, Romans thanked their first three emperors for delivering them from the curse of civil war. (Photo by Jean-Jacques BERNIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The glorious Caesars.

My favourite place: Tracy Borman

Vulcan caught Venus and Mars in a net and shows them to the laughing Gods. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

Religion in ancient Rome: what did they believe?.

A relief portrays patrons of a Roman tavern. (Photo By DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

The dangerous streets of ancient Rome.

Banquet at a wealthy home in ancient Rome. (Photo by North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy)

Dormice, ostrich meat and fresh fish: the surprising foods eaten in ancient Rome.

My favourite place: Miles Russell

Roman wallpainting of a dinner party, Pompeii, Italy. (Photo by Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy)

What did people eat in Ancient Rome?

Sicily

My favourite place: Sicily

Pliny the Elder depicted in a mid-12th century miniature, writing and giving his book to Roman emperor Vespasian. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)

My history heroPliny the Elder (AD 23–79).

Photo of people eating spaghetti

Q&ADid the Italians invent spaghetti?

5 facts about Caligula

A detail of a fresco of Hannibal riding his elephant. It is estimated he took as many as 40 elephants when he marched an army across the Alps and into northern Italy. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)

Q&AHow many elephants did Hannibal take over the Alps?

Relief of a charioteer

Q&AWho was the highest-paid sportsman in history?