Painting of Vikings in ships

Viking

‘Vikings’ creator Michael Hirst on the real history behind the hit drama.

Alfred the Great and science at Christmas.

Michael Wood on… the Galloway Hoard

Viking Britain.

Northern lights (aurora borealis) dances over an abandoned cabin in Tromsø, Northern Norway. (Photo by Hanneke Luijting via Getty Images)

My favourite place: Arctic Norway

Rune Temte as Ubba in 'The Last Kingdom'

Behind the scenes: series one of The Last Kingdom

A silhouette in front of a fire.

History quiz – Vikings, mobile phones and the Varangian Guard.

Lady Hall launches the British India Company passenger liner SS Uganda in Clydeside docks with the traditional bottle of champagne, 1952. The first time champagne was used to launch a ship was when Queen Victoria launched HMS Royal Arthur in 1891. (Photo by George Douglas/Getty Images)

Q&AWhy do we smash champagne bottles against new ships?.

The battle of Stamford Bridge, 1066. (Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

1066 – how the Viking diversion cost Harold his throne.

Detail of a Viking helmet from grave one at Vendel, Uppland, Sweden. In the 860s and 870s, the Vikings would bring war to England’s four kingdoms on a massive scale. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

The great Viking terror: how Norse warriors conquered the Anglo-Saxons.

The most popular historical figures you've (probably) never heard of

Vikings: an interview with the show’s creator and writer Michael Hirst.

A detail of the decorative carving on the side of the Oseberg cart c850 AD. A woman with streaming hair apparently restrains a man’s sword arm as he strikes at a horseman accompanied by a dog. Below is a frieze of intertwined serpentine beasts. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

Viking women: raiders, traders and settlers.

Edmund II - better known as Edmund Ironside - shown in a 14th-century manuscript. (Photo by Wikimedia Commons)

Edmund Ironside: Anglo-Saxon warrior king

Pearly queens

Q&AWhy does Britain have so many accents?

A brief history of graffiti and creativity.

A virtuous Viking: the medieval legend of Havelok the Dane.

Anglo-Saxon saints and British slave-owners.

Avaldsnes Church, Norway

My favourite place: Avaldsnes, Norway

King Ecgfrith of Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon who (almost) united Britain.

Q&AWere the pagan English gods the same as the Viking gods?.

A view of Þingvellir National Park in western Iceland. It was here, in AD 930, that Viking settlers established the first pan-Icelandic assembly – possibly the oldest parliamentary body in the world. (© Dreamstime)

Vikings: A land without kings.

The Oseberg ship at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway. (Photo by: Carl Simon/United Archives/UIG via Getty Images)

How the Vikings ruled the waves.

Michael Wood on Alfred the Great.

Viking treasures and Hitler's 'perfect woman'.

Renewed debate over battle of Hastings location

Hamo Thornycroft's 1901 statue of King Alfred the Great in Winchester. (Photo by RDImages/Epics/Getty Images)

Alfred the Great: do we overplay his 'greatness'?.

General prehistory

Isle of Tiree, Hebrides

Nazi spies and Viking ships.

Dwarves in the Holocaust and the Vikings' cultural legacy.