Period

The LibraryKarl Marx: the godfather of revolution.

Norsk Hydro's Vermork plant

The Special Operations Executive: Churchill's secret army.

An illustration of Peter Williamson

Peter Williamson: The diehard Scot.

Thomas Becket

The LibraryEngland’s forgotten civil war.

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

My favourite place: Western Australia

Kinder Scout

History explorer: The fight for the right to ramble.

ExploreSan Francisco: the Golden City by the bay.

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.

Africa’s contested past.

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.

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.

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

History explorerThe conquest of Wales.

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.

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.

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.

Illustration by Jonty Clark

Ye olde travel guide: Rome 192 AD.

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.

TimelineKey moments in the American civil rights movement

Shakespeare’s greatest actor.

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

Bad manners and a game of thrones: inside the court of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The Vietnam War on film.

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

Medieval mystics.

The real history behind ‘The Crown’ with Robert Lacey.

A badge featuring American civil rights activist Martin Luther King

The global legacy of Martin Luther King.

A quick history of France.