Period

A battle of wills: why the South lost the American Civil War

President Abraham Lincoln visiting soldiers encamped at the Civil War battlefield of Antietam in Maryland, 1 October 1862. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

The American Civil War: 7 facts and fictions. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

On the latest History Extra podcast, Christopher Somerville discusses his experiences of visiting some of Britain’s historic cathedrals, including Wells Cathedral, pictured. (Photo by Roger Utting | Dreamstime.com)

Exploring Britain’s cathedrals. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

c1943: Soldiers enjoy a baseball match at Wembley Stadium in London between the United States Army and Canadian Forces. With them sits Bobby, the mascot of the Canadian Highland Scottish regiment. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Animals at war: 12 amazing pictures

Hardian's Wall, a world heritage site. (Photo by Getty Images)

A tale of two walls: how Hadrian's Wall inspired Game of Thrones. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The food served at the wedding of Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell may be inspired by accounts of ancient Roman excess, says Ayelet Haimson Lushkov. (© Home Box Office, Inc/Sky Atlantic)

Power plays and scheming queens: the ancient history behind Game of Thrones. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Gerald Heard had a peculiar idea that the UFOs then being sighted all across the globe, as such as this ‘sighting’ in Sicily, were piloted not by humanoid ETs, as you may have presumed, but by alien super-bees from Mars. (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)

6 of history’s strangest ever theories about outer space. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrait of Edward IV, the first Yorkist King of England.

Edward IV: facts about his life, death and reign

Old Crofters Cottage, near Broadford, looking North, Isle of Skye, Scotland. (Photo by Getty Images)

The Scottish Clearances. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What is the nature of Margaret Thatcher's legacy?

A US soldier teaching two junior 'rookie' recruits how to clean a gun during the First World War

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about America’s entry and involvement in the First World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A joint Franco-Native Indian raid left 56 residents of Deerfield, a small township in north-western Massachusetts, dead. (Alamy)

America: Brave new world or accident?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

1949: Clementine with husband Winston Churchill at Epsom racecourse for the Derby. (Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

6 surprising facts about Clementine Churchill

Portrait of a young woman believed to be Henry VIII's fifth wife, Catherine Howard. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Did Catherine Howard commit adultery?

Professor Nicholas Vincent discusses the life and reign of King John. (Photograph by Mr Christopher Guy, Worcester Cathedral Archaeologist, reproduced by permission of the Chapter of Worcester Cathedral)

King John: medieval monster. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth Armstrong-Jones (centre) – the daughter of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon – was born seventh in line to the throne. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Daily Express/Getty Images)

7 royal babies who were once seventh in line to the throne. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How historically accurate are film portrayals of Jesse James?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British Indian soldiers stand at attention prior to inspection at Singapore, December 1941. (Photo by Alamy)

World War Two’s ‘ordinary’ soldiers. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Nationalist troops escort captured Republican militia during the Spanish Civil War. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The Spanish Civil War: an avoidable tragedy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A young visitor looks at a painting depicting the Amritsar Massacre

Amritsar: day of shame. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A French print by the Thierry bothers depicting the appearance of the landscape and inhabitants of the Moon

How to carry off a great hoax. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Perkin Warbeck, an imposter and pretender to the English throne, being humiliated in the stocks before his execution in 1499. Warbeck was used by Henry VII’s Yorkist enemies in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. (Getty Images)

Imposters in history: 16 famous con-artists and pretenders. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A Royal Air Force fighter squadron 'scrambles' after receiving the signal to engage the enemy during the Battle of Britain. (Photo by William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

A brief history of the Royal Air Force. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rethinking the crusades. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This 16th-century woodcut depicts King James VI at the North Berwick witch trials, the case that first sparked his obsession with hunting. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

James VI and I: the king who hunted witches. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Scottish soldier and Field Marshal Douglas Haig (1861 - 1928) visiting the troops during the First World War. (Central Press/Getty Images)

First World War

Field Marshal Haig: a man much misunderstood?

An ancient Roman relief shows a midwife delivering a baby. Many midwives had other occupations, and undertook the task as a contribution to their community. (Wellcome Images)

Call the (Roman) midwife

In only two years, Hernán Cortés brought about the downfall of an efficient military civilisation through a combination of diplomacy, warfare, tactics, luck and sheer force of personality, writes Caroline Dodds. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Cortés and Montezuma: the conquering of Tenochtitlan

Towards the end of the third century BC, the First Emperor of China sought to make his new state immortal by shielding it with what would be the earliest predecessor to the Great Wall. (Photo by Jean-Luc PETIT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

A brief history of border walls – from 2,000 BC to Trump’s Mexico wall. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Passengers reading a newspaper while waiting to disembark from the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury, having sailed from Jamaica, taken by an unknown photographer for the Daily Herald newspaper, 21 June 1948. "The Windrush scandal would have been inconceivable if we knew that those we are deporting not only helped to build the welfare state but were either born as, or to subjects of, the British state", says Professor Kehinde Andrews. (Photo by Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty Images)

Do we need to decolonise history? And if so, how?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.