Middle East

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Watercolour illustration of Istanbul

Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul: the history of a city of many names . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Video Crusade QnA WL

The big questions of the crusades

Men from Bethlehem in Jerusalem in 1894, when the territory identified as Palestine was part of the Ottoman empire. At the start of the 19th century Palestine's population was mostly Arab, with a small Jewish minority, but from the 1880s waves of settlers rapidly augmented the Jewish population (Culture Club/Getty Images)

Israel and the Palestinians: a history of conflict in 8 key episodes

The head and upper body of a monumental statue of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, which has been exhibited at the British Museum, London, since the 19th century (Photo by World History Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Was Ramesses II the greatest pharaoh of ancient Egypt?

Video Crusader states WL

The crusader states What was life like?

A joint British-Jewish patrol in Palestine during the 1936–39 Arab Revolt (Photo by Bridgeman Images)

How Britain stirred the cauldron of conflict in Palestine

Genghis Khan’s tent, as shown in a 14th-century Persian miniature. The Mongols’ conquests transformed the way the people of Eurasia did trade, shared knowledge, paid taxes and fought wars (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

What was life like under the Mongol empire?

Composite image of depictions of Queen Cleopatra

The face of Cleopatra: what did she look like, and was she really so beautiful?

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Illustration of King Richard I, on horseback, in the Holy Land, by Henry Justice Ford (Photo by The History Emporium / Alamy Stock Photo)

What if... Richard the Lionheart had recaptured Jerusalem? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thousands of Muslims gather in India in 2019 to offer Eid prayers, marking end of holy month of Ramadan

General ancient history

A brief history of Ramadan

Fires burn in Baghdad following an attack on the Iraqi capital, March 2003. The motives for the war continue to spark controversy (Photo by Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

“The early 2000s was a strange era of fear and terror”: remembering the Iraq War 20 years on

Aerial view of the 2,000-year-old Gaziantep Castle in Turkey, showing the damage caused by the earthquakes that hit the nation and neighbouring Syria in February 2023 (Photo by Yan Zhigang/VCG via Getty Images)

General History

Preservation of heritage sites: what happens in the aftermath of a catastrophe?

Mavia of Tanukh, illustration by Lynn Hatzius

General ancient history

Mavia Of Tanukh Warrior queen of Arabia

Cover illustration from Le Petit Journal, 1908, showing Ferdinand I of Bulgaria declaring independence (centre) and Franz Joseph I of Austria Hungary seizing Bosnia and Herzegovina from a forlorn-looking Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamid II (Photo by Archives Charmet / Alamy Images)

Divided they fell: how war, revolution and sectarianism led to the end of the Ottoman empire

A medieval illustration showing a doctor bleeding a patient

General History

A history of medicine 14 surprising facts