Death

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

Guillotined in the French Revolution: the bloody story through 7 severed heads

Anne Boleyn, who was executed by beheading on 19 May 1536 after being found guilty of high treason, was said to have had

The final days of Anne Boleyn: why did she die?

Dr Melanie Giles unravels some of the mysteries around amazingly preserved human remains found in bogs – and reveals what we can learn from them. (Image by Getty Images)

General ancient history

Bog bodies: what can they teach us?

Women 'take the air' in an attempt to ward off the Spanish Flu

First World War

“Far too little, too late”: what happened when Spanish Flu hit Britain?

Victorian surgeon Robert Liston during an operation

An appointment at the house of death: the horror of the early Victorian hospital

Dr Jenna Dittmar, who has been studying medieval skeletons, reveals what her findings can tell us about injuries and violence in the era. (Image by Getty Images)

Fatal accidents and violent injuries in the Middle Ages

In the 19th century, devoted pet-owners established Britain’s first pet cemeteries. Dr Eric Tourigny explains what they tell us about Victorian attitudes to animals. (Image by Getty Images)

Victorian pet cemeteries: animals in the afterlife

Illustration of a mummy with mask

How to make an Egyptian mummy in 6 steps

Queen Victoria

The final days and death of Queen Victoria

Robert Hutchinson on the death of Henry VIII. (Image by Getty Images)

The decline and death of Henry VIII

What happened when Thomas Becket, was brutally murdered in his cathedral? (Image by Getty Images)

Thomas Becket: from murder to martyrdom

Workers repair Fleet sewer in 1854. London’s creaking sewer network sparked anxieties over what lay beneath the sprawling capital. (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Living in fear: the dangers of Victorian London

Vahalla is depicted as a round-topped building in this funerary stone from 8th-century Sweden

Valhalla: fighting and feasting in the Viking warrior afterlife

This engraving by William Hogarth shows the final instalment of a sequence of artworks called 'The Four Stages of Cruelty' (1751). In it, the fictional Tom Nero is being dissected for anatomical studies at Cutlerian theatre near Newgate prison after being hanged for murder. Nero looks like the Dead-Alive, as though he can see and smell his own executed body on the dissection table. The chief physician sits in the centre on a high-backed chair, resembling a high court judge. He is surrounded by various medical men, including penal surgeons, who did gallows work. The skeletons of dissected criminals were usually refused a Christian burial and so were displayed as specimens, as can be seen top left and top right. (Photo by Guildhall Library/Getty Images)

Surviving the gallows: the Georgian hangings that didn’t go to plan

English suffrage leader Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928), who led the movement to win the vote for women in Britain. (Photo by Getty Images)

Women in black: the surprising history of widows