Period

Roman garden at the House of the Golden Cupids, Pompeii. (Linda Farrar)

A guide to ancient gardening.

Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector, 5 October 1917. (Photo by Frank Hurley/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

First World War

What caused the First World War?

Illustration of electric chair

Q&AWho invented the electric chair?

A giant leap for mankind: William Harvey reveals the circulation of the blood

The Dissolution and a forgotten colony.

The Chateau d'Hougoutmont, Belgium, was the scene of one of the most important battles in British and European history – the battle of Waterloo. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Bravery at Waterloo: the button seller and the drummer boy

Chinese lanterns at Kek Lok Si temple, George Town, Penang, Malaysia. (Photo by Inti St Clair/Getty Images)

My favourite place: Penang, Malaysia

An illustration from an 11th-century manuscript depicting a king and his minister doing justice, c1050. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Medieval English law in the time of Magna Carta.

Democracy and an age of genius.

c1754: Siege of a town led by Godefroy de Bouillon (c1060-1100) 1st Crusade (1095-1099), showing Saracens firing arrows at Crusaders as they attempt to scale the walls. From manuscript of Roman de Godefroy de Bouillon. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Crusades

Kidding/not kidding: a medieval sense of humour.

The Franciscans treating victims of the plague, miniature from La Franceschina, c1474, codex by Jacopo Oddi. Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare (Library). (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

The hospital experience in medieval England

Aerial view on Westminster Abbey at night. (Photo by Pawel Libera/LightRocket via Getty Images)

7 of England’s best medieval buildings.

The Easter Rising and a Victorian heyday.

Joan of Kent. (Image by Getty)

Joan of Kent: a perfect princess?

The Grand Bridge at Blenheim. (Getty Images)

History explorerBlenheim Palace and Capability Brown.

View of an Ancient Eyptian burial chamber

Q&AWhen was the first strike?.

Bhimrao Ambedkar, May 1946. (Photo by Margaret Bourke-White/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

My history hero: Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956).

A portrait of Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty which ruled over much of India from 1526 to 1858. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

How people make the past.

(Photo By DEA/G DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

The Tudor sex guide

Elizabeth I’s Armada portrait. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images

The Tudors’ unlikely allies.

An illustration of Edmund Spenser’s poetic work ‘The Shepheardes Calender’. (Photo by Culture Club/Contributor/Getty Images)

The dark side of Elizabethan England

An illustration from Dickinson's ‘Comprehensive Pictures of The Great Exhibition’. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

Heyday: the 1850s and the dawn of the global age.

Borris, County Carlow, Ireland. (Photo by Timothy Seren/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

The wild man of County Carlow.

Muslims and Jews in the 16th century.

The Holy Roman Empire and Capability Brown.

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh wave from the famous balcony at Buckingham Palace after the Queen's coronation on 2 June 1953. (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

7 memorable moments in the history of Buckingham Palace

The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. (Photo by Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)

Q&AHow much did it cost to build Versailles?

The Revenant and the real Hugh Glass: how historically accurate is the film?

Middle East history special.