Period

Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler watch a Nazi parade staged for the Italian dictators's visit to Germany. (Photo by Getty Images)

Dictators explained.

A 19th-century depiction of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

Who was Maharaja Ranjit Singh?

Who is the greatest leader in world history?

A portrait of Edward IV, the first Yorkist king of England. From the National Portrait Gallery. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Edward IV: champion of the Wars of the Roses

The (not so) stinky Middle Ages: why medieval people were cleaner than we think

On his plantation in Georgia, American politician Benjamin Hawkins is teaching Creek Native Americans how to use a plow, 1805. (Photo by Granger, NYC / TopFoto)

Food and war.

Illustration by Owen Davey

General History

A brief history of human filth: how did people try to keep clean in the past?

Four women dressed in the perceived fashion of the roaring twenties in a 1954 musical called ‘The Boy Friend’. (Photo by Getty Images)

How the ‘Roaring Twenties’ myth obscures the making of modern Britain

London’s trailblazing women.

c1960s photo showing a man places an engagement ring on a woman's finger.

A brief history of proposing marriage.

Keith Granville, managing director of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), holding a model of the Boeing 747 jet, with the new aircraft hangars under construction in the background, at Heathrow Airport, 17 March 1969. (Photo by Jim Gray/Keystone/Getty Images)

In pictures: the history of London’s Heathrow Airport

Once he gained control of the entire Roman Empire, Constantine set about an ambitious programme of reform. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Constantine the Great: the emperor who created Europe

Lindisfarne Castle, Northumberland. (Photo by Dreamstime)

Secrets of Lindisfarne.

Depiction of the five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell and touch) by a late 18th/early 19th unknown artist. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

5 smells that made Georgian England.

"We cannot walk alone": 26 August 1963 – As they hold hands, Martin Luther King Jr and the other leaders of the March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom make history. (Photo by Robert W. Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)

The story of Martin Luther King's struggle for civil rights in America.

The Jacobite rebellions: how close were they to returning the Stuarts to power?

Nancy Astor on the campaign trail in 1919

Nancy Astor facts: who was the first female MP in British history to take her seat in parliament?

Medieval medicine.

Hidden Figures: the incredible real history behind the film.

A copper engraving of Margaret Pole's execution

General History

Are these the worst botched executions in history?

The Cato Street conspiracy

Georgian terrorists: the Cato Street Conspiracy.

A medieval monk praying in front of a table of apothacary's herbs

Beating the Black Death: did medieval medicine help people to survive?.

Millennium Centre, Cardiff. (Photo by Dreamstime)

Simon Jenkins: "Wales needs to get over England and be Wales again".

Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump

From Lincoln to Trump: a brief history of the US Republican Party.

The rise of the cat burglar.

Andrew Ziminski pictured at his workshop in Somerset.

Andrew Ziminski"The stonework at Stonehenge is a Gordian knot of mind-bogglingness".

Sylvia Pankhurst is taken into custody

History heroEmma Barnett chooses Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960).

Go west: Refugees crowd the quayside in the port of Kolberg. Between them and their destination in the west lay freezing waters, mines and enemy submarines. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Operation Hannibal 1945: the Germany evacuation that dwarfed the 'miracle of Dunkirk'.

A Burglar Looks In, Picture Post 1950. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Burglary: a modern history.

Colour painting showing Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi on a horse.

Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi: the heroic queen dubbed India’s 'Joan of Arc'