September 2020

Expert history articles from the September 2020 issue of BBC History Magazine

Augustus was the first Roman emperor (Photo By DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty Images)

Your guide to the Roman empire: when it was formed, why it split and how it failed, plus its most colourful emperors

Edward the Confessor seated at a banquet

Edward the Confessor: England’s holy hardman

A Fool Rebuked by God, 14th-century psalter. (Photo by Heritage Arts/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Medieval marginalia: exploring ‘doodles’ from the Middle Ages

As seen in this early 19th-century depiction of an initiation, Masons have long used secrecy to

A history of Freemasonry: from Enlightenment ideals to satanic conspiracy stories