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Thomas Blood stealing the Crown Jewels

The day Thomas Blood stole the Crown Jewels

An illustration of the barons compelling King John to ratify Magna Carta, 1215. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

6 facts about Magna Carta

Pope Francis celebrates a priesthood ordination and mass in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. (Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP via Getty Images)

General History

Sex and the (Vatican) City: a brief history of clerical celibacy

Fighting for the vote

Glamorous portrait of movie actress Hedy Lamarr wearing white fox fur short jacket

History heroMartha Lane Fox chooses Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000)

Holocaust orphans (Photo by Getty)

The Holocaust orphans

The state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill

The death of Sir Winston Churchill and the top-secret plans for his funeral

An engraving depicts a frost fair on the Thames

Frozen: Britain's Little Ice Age

Child survivors at Auschwitz

Second World War

A brief history of Auschwitz

Simon de Montfort’s medieval revolution

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector

Royalists, beards and cowardice: are these the strangest taxes in history?

6 lesser-known facts about the Ottoman Empire

Princess Margaret wearing a fur coat

The Queen's "rebel sister": 13 facts about Princess Margaret

Sir Nicholas Winton

Second World War

The 'British Schindler' who saved 669 children from the Nazis

American president Warren G Harding and his wife, First Lady Florence Harding.

Tension in the Middle East and populist presidents: what the world was like 100 years ago

The Windrush generation

Scandalous Tudor marriages: 7 women who braved royal wrath by marrying for love

Puritans and the Mayflower

German prisoners of war

What would you have done? 6 terrible choices people had to make during the Second World War

New York City police watching agents pour liquor into a sewer

Wet vs Dry: how prohibition fractured America

Edward VI

To kidnap a king: the foiled plot to abduct Edward VI

The Auschwitz volunteer

Illustation of a pope

How long do popes reign? All you need to know about popes and the papacy

A still from Sam Mendes film '1917'

First World War

“A staggering tour de force – but an opportunity missed”: a historian’s review of the film 1917

Richard III, Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence

Blood brothers: Richard III's battle with his siblings

Medieval myths

Queen Victoria with Prince Albert and their children in 1846. After a painting by F Winterhalter. Victoria’s husband, Albert, “carved out for the crown a moral kind of authority as the nation’s first and model family,” says Sarah Gristwood. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Retaining the royals: why has the British monarchy survived – and thrived?

Pope John XVII

Has there ever been a married Pope?

Confronting a dark past

A despatch rider during WW1, as featured in new Sam Mendes film '1917'

First World War

The real trench runners of WW1