November 2011

Articles from the November 2011 issue of BBC History Magazine

Boys playing conkers in 1926. Horse chestnuts played an unlikely role in the war effort just a few years earlier. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

First World War

Did conkers help win the First World War?

Henrietta Boyle

Fashion history: dressing to impress in the 17th century

Francisco Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru John Everett Millais. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

A big day in history: Francisco Pizarro’s tiny Spanish army takes a mighty Incan leader hostage

A portrait of King Edward III. By using his offspring as pawns in a series of alliances, the king hoped to wield power over a confederation of dependent states bound together by feudal and family ties. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)

King Edward III: the family man

English soldiers in the ruins of Palmyre in charge of taking over the Syrian Territory occupied by Vichy’s France. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Second World War

The untold Second World War

Clarence Harry Willcock MP, who refused to show his identity card to a policeman, 13 June 1951. (Photo by Walter Bellamy/Express/Getty Images)

My history hero: Clarence Willcock

View towards Steel Rigg from Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria. (Photo by VisitBritain/Rod Edwards via Getty Images)

History explorer: Early Roman Britain

Illustration by Jonty Clark

General ancient history

Ye olde travel guide: Kiev 978 AD

A second petition of 800,000 signatures, protesting against the abolition of the basic petrol ration, being presented to the House of Commons, 10 December 1947. (Photo by Harry Todd/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

E-petitions: in the name of the people?

A scene from the Chronique de St Denis depicting the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Louis VII of France, 1137. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

An A to Z of the Plantagenets