General Modern

As the world’s best athletes congregate in Tokyo for the 29th Summer Games, David Goldblatt answers your questions on the history of the Olympics. (Image from Getty Images)

Olympic history: everything you wanted to know

Michael Burleigh discusses some of history’s key political killings, from Julius Caesar to Abraham Lincoln. (Image from Getty Images)

How assassinations have changed history

Jesse Owens sprinting on a track at the Berlin Olympics.

A history of unsporting conduct at the Olympics

Mao Zedong applauds a parade of Red Guards in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. These young militants followed Mao’s call in early August 1966 to defend the party from a ‘white terror’. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Reign of the red terror: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution

Robespierre is guillotined on 28 July 1794. Had he died two years earlier, his name would now be associated with liberty and equality, argues Marisa Linton. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Robespierre: man of terror

The execution of Louis XVI in the Place de la Revolution

What is a revolution?

Fern Riddell

Contraception, consent & erotic connection: sex through history

Benin Bronzes at the British Museum In London

What are the Benin Bronzes and why are they important? Explore the significance of the controversial treasures

American billionaire Howard Hughes (shown here in a car in 1947) went from a visionary filmmaker to a germ-obsessed recluse, dying in 1976. (Photo by Getty Images)

“His flesh had rotted, and his bed was full of worms”: 5 of history’s most eccentric hermits

The Three Lions crest. A trio of lions has appeared on the arms of every English (and British) monarch since the late 12th century, and has been flown as a battle standard on English soil and abroad. (Photo by Marc Atkins/Offside/Getty Images)

Q&A Why are there three lions on the shirts of the English football team?

Everything you wanted to know about Canadian history

Canadian history: everything you wanted to know

Illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare

“Make love not midnight snacks”: a social history of slimming clubs

On the evening of 13 March thousands of people in Phoenix, Arizona, and surrounding areas see a triangular formation of lights drifting above the city. Fife Symington, the governor of Arizona at the time, was one of the witnesses and he described the UFO as “otherworldly”. This image shows something similar to what was reported at the time. (Photo by Alamy)

A brief history of UFOs: top 10 sightings & timeline

A UFO photographed in New Mexico by a government employee. The image was released by the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization after careful study. It is unknown what the image shows.(Photo by Getty Images)

How UFOs conquered the world – without firing a shot

Front door of No 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the British prime minister

From Walpole to Johnson: lessons from the 300-year history of the British prime minister