Period

When did the practice of funeral rings begin/end and how widespread was it?

BBC History Magazine

The new deacon

BBC History Magazine

The White Man’s World

BBC History Magazine

April issue out now

A view towards the Carew estuary between a dry stone wall and the ruins of Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire, UK. (Dreamstime)

Where history happened: Tudor courtiers with Suzannah Lipscomb

BBC History Magazine

Great misconception

Painting depicting medieval nuns. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

17th-century nuns on the run

Philip of Spain, King of England: The Forgotten Sovereign

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BBC History Magazine now on iPad

BBC History Magazine

Invited to tea

BBC History Magazine

Able Seamen: The Lower Deck of the Royal Navy 1850–1939

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh

Winter defeats scurvy

BBC History Magazine

Sir Charles Napier's sin

Mikado Maids

A big day in history: Gilbert and Sullivan unveil 'The Mikado'

Britain’s medieval identity crisis

Vintage map of the Bahamas. (Library of Congress)

Ye Olde Travel Guide: Bahamas 1718

'Tirpitz' hiding in a Norwegian fjord in 1942. “She outclassed anything in the British fleet,” says Patrick Bishop. (Getty Images)

The Second World War: sinking the Tirpitz

A painting depicting the Duke of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo. "Wellington’s victories at Roliça and Vimeiro in 1808 were the first significant defeats inflicted upon the French emperor’s armies in Europe," says Saul David. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The triumph of the redcoats

Hard labour: a woman tarring and flinting in Oxford Street, central London, 1919. (Getty Images)

The Library“Our Excess Girls": women after the First World War

Ernest Bevin

My history hero: Ernest Bevin (1881-1951)

Q&A: Music as a ‘psych-weapon'

Dundrennan Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway

BBC History Magazine

Goldwynisms

BBC History Magazine

Vicious murder

The Minack Theatre, Cornwall

BBC History Magazine

Relativity explained

Too good for the gallery

BBC History Magazine

BBC History Magazine now on Kindle

Chris Patten, the last governor of colonial Hong Kong, is pictured here receiving the Union Jack flag shortly before Hong Kong was returned to China, ending over a century of British rule. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

The British empire: 10 big questions