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Few war leaders have been more profoundly steeped in history than Winston Churchill, who drew inspiration from his ancestor – and one of Britain's most celebrated generals – the Duke of Marlborough (left). (Images by Getty Images/Bridgeman

Sending history into battle: the lessons that war leaders have tried to learn from the past.

Lauren Bruner and Iyozo Fujita

Pearl Harbor: 5 frontline stories from people who were there.

Rosa Parks rides an integrated bus

From Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King: the boycott that inspired the dream

Members of the Ku Klux Klan march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC in 1925. The Klan of this era was a terrorist group in the precise meaning of that term, says Linda Gordon. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

When the Ku Klux Klan was a mass movement

A 'Thanksgiving Greetings' postcard. (Photo by K.J. Historical/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

A brief history of Thanksgiving.

Princess Margaret wearing a fur coat

Princess Margaret: from glamorous royal to a slide into tragedy.

A portrait of Isabella I of Castile. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

Isabella I of Castile: Europe’s greatest queen?

A waitress working behind the counter at the first ever Lyons tea shop to be opened in London, 1953

The teashop empire.

British writer Roald Dahl

Second World War

Roald Dahl11 things you might not know about the children's author

Harlech Castle with Snowdonia in the background.

A brief history of Wales: the resilient nation

The ninth-century Alfred Jewel, adorned with the inscription: "Alfred ordered me to be made". This masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon art is thought to have been an aestel, a pointer used to follow text. (Picture by Alamy)

10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history.

President John F Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally ride through the streets of Dallas

The assassination of JFK: an eyewitness account.

Nicola Tallis photographed by David Hampton in October 2019

Nicola Tallis on Margaret Beaufort, mother of the Tudors.

Viking ships arriving in Britain, c1130. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty

From the raid on Lindisfarne to Harald Hardrada's defeat: 8 Viking dates you need to know

Hallie Rubenhold photographed in London. "In the 19th century, being both poor and a woman was a terrible combination. The cards were stacked against them," she says. (Photography by Fran Monks)

Hallie Rubenhold: “To most people, the women killed by the Ripper are just corpses. I want to tell a different story”.

The queen's visit to the Welsh village of Aberfan

“No match for reality”: the missing history in The Crown series three.

The 1969 documentary was made amid a feeling that there was an increasing awareness of a need to ‘sell’ the monarchy to the people, writes historian Sarah Gristwood. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

‘Royal Family’: the fly-on-the-wall documentary the Palace doesn’t want you to see.

Queen Elizabeth II invests her eldest son, Prince Charles

Charles, The Prince of Wales’s 1969 investiture at Caernarfon Castle, 50 years on

A young American woman gazes at a human skull, sent to her by a boyfriend during WW2

Opinion: Midway’s treatment of the Japanese enemy highlights the power and limits of empathy.

Charles I's great weakness was that he made a strict distinction between his role as king, in which he could not compromise, and his personal role, which was entirely pleasant and courteous, says Sean Lang. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

8 of the nicest kings in history

The newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II

Why has the British monarchy survived?

Chinese propaganda poster, c1969. (Photo by Getty images)

Maoism.

Sir Anthony Blunt, British art historian and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures

Who was Sir Anthony Blunt and the Cambridge Five? Plus 4 others who spied for the Soviets

Mary I: the forgotten trailblazer.

Julia Lovell’s Maoism: A Global History wins 2019 Cundill History Prize

Statue of Liberty. (Photo by Dreamstime)

A history of the United States.

The War of the Worlds. (Photo by BBC/© Mammoth Screen)

Days of future past: how the new BBC TV series The War of the Worlds reinvented the sci-fi classic

Turkeys, bred in Norfolk, cover the facade of a London butcher's shop, 1929. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

Shop ’till you drop: a brief history of Christmas shopping.

Is the world still living in the shadow of the crusades?

Actress Sarah Bernhardt, who was personally invited by Oscar Wilde to play the title role in the upcoming London premiere of his play, 'Salomé'.

6 of London theatre’s most notable historical scandals.