Period

8 of Britain’s best historical houses and gardens

Medieval bodies. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The LibraryKarl Marx: the godfather of revolution. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Norsk Hydro's Vermork plant

The Special Operations Executive: Churchill's secret army. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An illustration of Peter Williamson

Peter Williamson: The diehard Scot. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thomas Becket

The LibraryEngland’s forgotten civil war. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Fremantle's High Street, with 19th-century buildings.

My favourite place: Western Australia

Kinder Scout

History explorer: The fight for the right to ramble. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

ExploreSan Francisco: the Golden City by the bay. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Norman cavalry charge the enemy in this detail from the Bayeux Tapestry. Debate rages over the pros and cons of the tapestry leaving France for the first time in more than 900 years. (Photo by Photo 12/Getty Images)

Will the Bayeux Tapestry actually come to Britain?

Bay of Pigs invasion: Kennedy’s Cuban catastrophe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Africa’s contested past. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Pathologist Thomas Harvey holds the brain of Albert Einstein in a jar, Kansas, 1994. Harvey, the on-duty pathologist during the eminent physicist's autopsy, removed Einstein’s brain and kept most of it stored in two glass jars, refrigerated inside a beer cooler, for more than 20 years. (Photo by Michael Brennan/Getty Images)

Q&AWhat happened to Einstein's brain?

A portrait of Elizabeth I, who, says Susan Doran, “confounded her Catholic enemies, imposed her will on the political scene, turned England into a strong Protestant state and presided over a glittering court culture”. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I: the great unifier. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A badge promoting the Tufty Club, an organisation launched by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to educate children on road safety, 1941. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

Safety first: 20th-century health and safety messages

A portrait of Edward VI. The young monarch’s support for a trade venture through the North-East Passage laid the foundations for the Elizabethan age of exploration. (Photo by GeorgiosArt/Getty Images)

Edward VI: boy king and religious zealot. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The distinctive polygon towers of Caernarfon Castle. (Photo by Gail Johnson/Getty Images)

History explorerThe conquest of Wales. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This painting in Kensington Palace shows a group standing on a balustrade. Among them are George I’s two Turkish grooms of the chamber, ‘Mustapha’ and ‘Mohamed’. (Photo by Steve Vidler/Alamy Stock Photo)

Tales of the Turk. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A poster produced for the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) promoting express rail travel to the Lancashire seaside resort of Blackpool

The great escape: Britain's love affair with the seaside holiday. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Henry VIII, c1537. Henry’s clash with the church was, says George Bernard, the most significant episode of the Tudor era and transformed England’s relationship with continental Europe. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

The LibraryHenry VIII and the scourge of papal power

A crowned Tudor rose. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Stringer via Getty Images)

Why the Tudors grab us. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration by Jonty Clark

Ye olde travel guide: Rome 192 AD. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A statue of Æthelflæd which stands in the grounds of Tamworth Castle in Staffordshire. (Photo by Chris Gibson/Alamy Stock Photo)

Æthelflæd: iron lady of Mercia. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

TimelineKey moments in the American civil rights movement

Shakespeare’s greatest actor. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Napoleon Bonaparte of France. (Hulton Fine Art Collection via Getty Images)

Bad manners and a game of thrones: inside the court of Napoleon Bonaparte. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Vietnam War on film. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The secret intimacies of Edward IV: multiple marriages and a same-sex affair?

Medieval mystics. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The real history behind ‘The Crown’ with Robert Lacey. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.