Death

Illustration from Dante's ‘Inferno', depicting thieves tormented in hell by serpents.

General ancient history

A brief history of the afterlife

Angel-of-death-2-42d2a16

Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London

Medieval punishments

How bloody was medieval life?

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?

Clothes infected by the Black Death are burned in medieval Europe

Black Death facts: your guide to “the worst catastrophe in recorded history”

Engraving of the death of Cleopatra

When did Queen Cleopatra die and who killed her?

Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett

Percy Fawcett and the search for the ‘Lost City Of Z’

Prisoners at Bergen-Belsen

Second World War

A brief history of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where Anne Frank died

Engraving of emperor Commodus's death

Cheese, angry gods and shoddy surgeons: the unlikely deaths of Roman emperors

The effects of the disease known as the Black Death

Black Death quarantine: how did we try to contain the most deadly disease in history?

Outbreak of dance mania

The medieval dance of death

A painting by Vincenzo Camuccini depicting the death of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

The death of Caesar: do we know the whole story?

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 a century ago?

A copper engraving of Margaret Pole's execution

General Early Modern

Are these the worst botched executions in history?

Charles Manson stares out from fabric on sale in San Francisco

The afterlife of Charles Manson