General Modern

c60 AD, Queen Boudica of the Iceni holding a spear. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

8 things you may not know about British history

Paul Morland. (Photo by Frank Monks)

Books interview with Paul Morland: “Even the Spanish flu pandemic wasn’t enough to stop population growth”

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Portrait of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, who was born in around 1501 in Norfolk and executed by decapitation at Tower Green on 19 May 1536. (Photo by The Print Collector/Alamy Stock Photo)

The New Year’s resolutions Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I and Josef Stalin should have made…

Tom Smith's Surprise Cosaques, Christmas Crackers 1878. (Image by Getty)

The history of Christmas crackers

'The Young Princes in the Tower', 1831. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Anne Boleyn, Beefeaters, Guy Fawkes and the princes: a brief history of the Tower of London

A still from the 2018 film 'Robin hood', in which actor Taron Egerton plays the legendary English archer. (Photo by Alamy)

Robin Hood: how the legendary figure has been portrayed across the centuries

Mel Gibson in a scene from the film 'Braveheart', 1995. (Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images)

Good drama, bad history: 11 historically inaccurate films you need to watch

'Merry Christmas' Victorian illustration of Santa Claus holding toys and blowing on a trumpet, chromolithograph, 1915. (Illustration by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

A brief history of Santa Claus

Illustration by Femke de Jong

Does it always pay to trust the cash in your pockets?

Britons watch Queen Elizabeth II’s Christmas message in 1958. (© Topfoto)

A brief history of the Christmas Speech

A group of carol singers on a wintry night at Christmas time, c1890. (Photo by William M. Spittle/Fine Art Photographic/Getty Images)

Christmas songs – the oldest ones are the best

Simon Sebag Montefiore on letters from history. (Photo by Dreamstime)

Letters that changed the world

(Illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare for BBC History Magazine)

36 books for history lovers: BBC History Magazine’s Christmas reading list

Ministers vomit taxes into a large bag labelled 'budget', while the Prince Regent lurks with a list of expenses in this illustration from 1816. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

10 terrible taxes in history