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Georgian

Amazing livesRobert Wedderburn: the ‘notorious firebrand’ who campaigned against slavery.

A coloured engraving of pirate captain Bartholomew Roberts, who enforced strict rules on his ship.

Liquor, loot and death on the high seas: 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the history of pirates.

The ‘Eye of Providence’, a symbol linked to the Illuminati, stares out from the reverse side of all US one-dollar bills

Who were the Illuminati – and how can you join them?

A portrait of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, English naval commander. One of Britain's greatest military figures, Admiral Nelson (1758-1805) was the victor at a number of naval battles in the Napoleonic Wars, most famously, Trafalgar (1805) where he was fatally wounded. (Photo by Getty images)

“A monster of egotism”: Dominic Sandbrook reveals the secret to Admiral Nelson’s unstoppable success

A portrait of King George III overlayed against an 18th century map of America

This forgotten 18th-century sex scandal almost overturned the British Army’s hierarchy

Handel's Messiah: the scandalous birth of a classical masterpiece.

Basildon Park in Berkshire

The profits of slaveryThe dire impact of empire on Britain's countryside.

Sexuality on trial in colonial America.

Did Britain really rule the waves?.

Jane Austen: life of the week.

The princess who fled Romanov Russia.

An engraving of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett for Jane Austen's novel 'Pride and Prejudice' (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Honeymooning with your mother-in-law? The truths of Regency romance.

Queen Catherine the Great and (inset) a horse

Did Catherine the Great really have sex with a horse?

Portrait of Jane Austen as a young woman.

The real reason Jane Austen never married

Jane Austen's grave.

Lupus or murder?What was Jane Austen's cause of death?

My history heroMary Archer chooses Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier.

Sacagawea: life of the week.

Sarah Biffin: the brilliant artist who found fame and royal favour – despite having no arms or legs.

Embalmed figure of Jeremy Bentham

“A wax head with his own hair had to suffice”: the horror of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘auto-icon’

Catherine the Great: life of the week.

American actress Charlotte Cushman and Matilda Hayes. (Image by Alamy)

How Georgian and Victorian same-sex couples co-opted marital traditions and made them their own.

Iain Duncan Smith and Robert Peel

My history heroIain Duncan Smith chooses Robert Peel.

Fess Parker, an American actor, as Davy Crockett

The man in the coonskin cap: your guide to Davy Crockett

The surgeon Robert Liston prepares to cut open a patient in the first half of the 19th century. Known as the “fastest knife in the west end”, Liston could remove a leg in less than 30 seconds. For most patients, however, the agony was more prolonged. (Wellcome Library, London)

"An enlightened turn": how medicine (and the vaccination) developed in Victorian Britain.

Schools of hard knocks: Georgian and Victorian public schools.

Nelson: a life of heroism and scandal.

Visitors promenade alongside a lake with Surrey Zoological Gardens in the background, 1844 (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Victorian zoosAnimal attraction in the 19th century.

My history heroSteve Hackett chooses Thomas Paine.

A vessel at sea comes across the mythical ghost ship The Flying Dutchman

General History

Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams

The race to identify all living creatures.