Period

Samir PuriHow Empires Shaped the World.

Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier’s painting portrays the Declaration of the Rights of Man

How progressive was the French 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

Kissing the Blarney Stone: a women hangs over the precipice with the aid of a friend as she attempts the feat at Blarney Castle in 1935

What is the Blarney Stone, where did it come from and why do people kiss it?

Britain & France: enemies or economic partners?

Britain & France: enemies or economic partners?.

French Revolution podcast episodes

A late 18th-century painting depicting the execution of Marie Antoinette in 1793. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The smile revolution against the Reign of Terror.

The execution of Louis XVI in the Place de la Revolution

What is a revolution?.

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

Guillotined in the French Revolution: the bloody story through 7 severed heads

Watergate in 100 days: how President Nixon fell

Watergate in 100 days: how President Nixon fell.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waves to the crowd at Heston Airport and declaims "Peace in our Time" after returning from signing the Munich Agreement. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Second World War

Did appeasement cause the Second World War?

Camille and Lucile Desmoulins

How the architects of the 'Terror' after the French Revolution ended up among its victims.

Antony and Cleopatra meet for the first time

What if...Antony and Cleopatra had won the battle of Actium?.

Fern Riddell

Contraception, consent & erotic connection: sex through history.

The vanquishers of the Bastille before the Hôtel de Ville, 14 July 1789. Found in the Collection of Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

What triggered the French Revolution?.

The decapitation machine now known as the guillotine was not a French invention and wasn't invented by Joseph Guillotin. (Image by Getty Images)

Q&ADid the French invent the guillotine?

The Highland Clearances: everything you wanted to know.

Running to escape the horrors of war.

A colourised portrait of Anton Chekhov, from 1901

History heroWilliam Boyd chooses Anton Chekhov (1860–1904).

The glamour & danger of Cairo’s 1920s nightlife scene.

A bust of Marcus Aurelius and a detail on Marcus Aurelius’s column in Rome

Marcus Aurelius: Rome’s reluctant killer.

England's World Cup-winning captain, Bobby Moore (1941–93) kisses the Jules Rimet World Cup trophy after England's 4-2 win over West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley Stadium, London. Also pictured are Moore's team-mates George Cohen, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

In pictures: when England won the football World Cup

James VI and I.

Was James VI and I murdered?.

An illustration of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII.

Did the Tudors invent the Wars of the Roses?.

A portrait of William Barnes. The accomplished linguist wanted to adopt a form of English purged of foreign imports

National English: the language that would save England.

The Second Battle of Copenhagen (or the Bombardment of Copenhagen) in 1807, the spire of the Church of Our Lady on fire, watercolour by Christofer Willem Eckersberg (1783-1853). Napoleonic Wars, Denmark, 19th century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Britain’s illegal war: the story of the battle of Copenhagen.

Cnut's invasion of England: setting the scene for the Norman conquest.

The Viking Great Army: the latest discoveries.

Post pandemic: how the years after the Black Death briefly became a ‘golden age’ for medieval women.

Glee-man, high-deedy & bendsome: a language to save England.