Espionage

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell’s postal spies: intercepting letters and codebreaking in the General Post Office.

Oleg Gordievsky

Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent who changed the course of the Cold War

Noor Inayat Khan in her Special Operations Executive uniform

Second World War

Noor Inayat Khan: the daring life of the British WW2 ‘spy princess’

A portrait of Chevalier d’Éon presenting as a woma

Chevalièr d’Éon: the tale of an 18th-century gender non-conforming spy

The cover of Le Petit Journal, 13 January 1895, showing the "degradation" of Alfred Dreyfus during which his sword was snapped over a warrant officer’s knee (Photo by Leemage / Corbis via Getty Images)

The Dreyfus Affair: how France was divided over a miscarriage of justice

Second World War allies Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin (left to right) at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. East and west would soon become bitter rivals, however

The Cold War: 9 key questions

American citizens Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, following their arrest by the FBI 1950. They were convicted of passing infomation to the Soviets and executed in 1953

The secrets and lies of Cold War spies

Winston Churchill discusses the invasion of Sicily with other senior Allied figures in 1943

Second World War

Operation Mincemeat: how a corpse duped Hitler

Wiretapping: a secret history.

Spies in show business.

A portrait of King Charles I

Jane Whorwood: the royalists' secret weapon.

Queen Victoria’s spy network.

Queen Victoria in 1861

Queen of spies? Inside Queen Victoria’s secret intelligence network.

Thomas Kendrick: MI6 spymaster who helped win WW2.

Klaus Fuchs: the scientist who became the Soviet super spy.

Espionage history: everything you wanted to know.

The trials of Ethel Rosenberg.

Socialite, countess, WW2 spy: Aline Griffith.

Women secret agents in Nazi-occupied France.

Alan Turing

Second World War

Your guide to Alan Turing: the man, the enigma

Roland Philipps tells the story of Mathilde Carré

Traitor or triple agent? The WW2 spy Mathilde Carré.

Kate VigursThe women of SOE in WW2 France.

MI9’s secret escape missions.

Hunting down the Portland Spy Ring.

Wrens operating the Colossus computer at Bletchley Park, 1943

Second World War

Your guide to Bletchley Park, the key WW2 decryption centre

Ian Fleming, British author and creator of the James Bond character

James Bond in real life: where did Ian Fleming's inspirations come from?.

Escaping Nazi-occupied Europe.

A portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I

Walter Ralegh: “The rankest traitor in all England?”.

The Hughes Glomar Explorer was a salvage vessel disguised as a mining ship, designed to secretly recover Soviet sub K-129

Project Azorian: the Cold War CIA mission to snatch Soviet nuclear sub K-129 from the sea floor.

Ben Macintyre on Agent Sonya – the greatest female spy in history.