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Q&A: What was the punishment of being ‘burnt in the hand’?.

Australian bushrangers: folk heroes or common criminals?.

Olympic history: everything you wanted to know.

Why were the Georgians fixated with fatness?.

Medal winners on a podium

Q&AWho won the first Olympic medal? And what was the prize before that?

How assassinations have changed history.

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain in The Green Knight an adaptation of the Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and The Green Knight

The Green Knight on screen: what can we expect from the retelling of an Arthurian epic?

A man runs on an athletics track with a crowd behind him

Harry Edward: Britain’s first black Olympic hero.

The Persian ambassador bows before Louis XIV in the Palace of Versailles

King of the world: how Louis XIV turned France into a global power.

Crown Prince Olav on his ice yacht (Getty Images)

From Hollywood to war heroes: 10 Olympians who were more famous outside sport.

Belgium and the Netherlands compete in a tug of war at the Antwerp Olympic

Olympic oddballs: 5 unusual Olympic sports from the past.

Jesse Owens sprinting on a track at the Berlin Olympics.

A history of unsporting conduct at the Olympics.

Elinor CleghornThe History of Unwell Women.

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.

The slave trade: a family history.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster

What was the Chernobyl Disaster?

Tokyo Olympics 1964: Yoshinori Sakai prepares to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony. Born on the day that the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, he was a symbol of Japan’s postwar reconstruction and peace

Tokyo Olympics 1964: the Games that defined Japan.

The piano: a musical history.

Photo of a crocodile

Q&AWhy do we say 'crocodile tears'?

Queen Elizabeth I dancing with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Artist unknown. (© Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library/Alamy)

Tudor tunes: music at the courts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James VI and I

The first modern Olympics at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens

The first modern Olympics: what happened at the 1896 games?

Should they stand or fall? The great statue debate.

George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla

Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla: the history behind The Current War

Everything you wanted to know about the church in medieval England – Nicholas Orme podcast

The church in medieval England: everything you wanted to know.

French Revolution Quiz – test your knowledge with our history quiz

QuizHow much do you know about the French Revolution?

Madness and misery in Antarctica.

Bronwen Everill discusses the Benin Bronzes

The battle over the Benin Bronzes.

Are revolutions doomed to failure?.

Medieval romances were sometimes considered subversive material. This scene from the Roman de la Rose, written in the 13th century, depict two lovers. In later centuries, it was said romances “inflamed beastly and filthy desire”

The Mills & Boon of the Middle Ages? Unpicking the mysteries of medieval romances.

Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle

Q&AWho wrote the French national anthem?