Period

Britain under Roman rule and the truth about the crusades.

Field Marshal Harold Alexander, pictured in 1943. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

My history heroField Marshal Harold Alexander (1891–1969).

Clean-up crews salvaging what they can from the ruins of buildings in Hornsey, a north London suburb, 1944. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Hitler's secret weapon.

Britain’s waterways have enjoyed a renaissance since the Second World War. (Photo by George W Johnson/Getty Images)

History explorer: Britain’s inland waterways.

A detail of a funerary monument from Athens, Greece depicting a squire taming a horse. Holding elaborate funerals was one of the many ways in which aristocrats broadcast their great wealth. (Photo By DEA/G.DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

The trouble with luxury.

A Saracen attack on Crusaders, from the French manuscript 'Chroniques de Saint Denis', c1200. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Traders and crusaders.

Illustration by Jonty Clark

Ye olde travel guide: Constantinople 976.

BBC History Magazine

A Prussian showman

BBC History Magazine

The invention of the bathtub

BBC History Magazine

The British Confederate

BBC History Magazine

Politicians should resist the urge to invoke the wartime spirit

Second World War

Aerial bombing

BBC History Magazine

The Trials of Margaret Clitherow

BBC History Magazine

The making of Wales

In 1830 a keeper at the Tower of London menagerie accidentally removed the barrier between a lion and two tigers. The animals were eventually prised apart, by which point the lion had been fatally wounded. (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Life with the lions: the Tower of London menagerie.

Captain Kidd

The sacrifice of Captain Kidd.

BBC History Magazine

Pashas: Traders and Travellers in the Islamic World

BBC History Magazine

The New Bath Guide

BBC History Magazine

Nazis 'planned gas attack' on Britain

BBC History Magazine

Bismarck: A Life

BBC History Magazine

July issue out now

BBC History Magazine

Captain Cook: Master of the Seas

The LibraryThe Duke of Wellington and Alfred the Great.

A portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie), the grandson of James II and VII. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The LibraryWhere history happened: The Jacobites.

Operation Barbarossa, which began on 22 June 1941, saw more than three million German troops surge into the Soviet Union along a front of more than 1,000 miles. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Barbarossa and Britain.

The Saint-Quentin canal, part of the Germans’ Hindenburg Line, which the Allies broke through on Sunday 29 September 1918. (Photo by 2nd Lt. D McLellan/ IWM via Getty Images)

The LibraryWhy didn’t the Allies march on Berlin in 1918?.

Schoolchildren helping workmen construct a new estate of pre-fabricated houses in Watford, Hertfordshire in 1946 following the devastation of the Second World War. (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Postwar squatters: a very British uprising.

Sir Alec Clegg was the founder of Bretton Hall College (pictured), a West Yorkshire college specialising in arts and performance. (Photo by Memitina/Getty Images)

My history hero: Sir Alec Clegg (1909-86).

German Spring Offensive: reserve troops in Saint Quentin on their way to the front, March 1918. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

How the war was won.

Illustration by Jonty Clark

Ye olde travel guide: New Orleans 1858.