Historical people

Anglo-Saxon thegns

Q&A Who was Eadnoth the Staller?

A portrait of Chevalier d’Éon presenting as a woma

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

Images of Sidi Mubarak Bombay

Sidi Mubarak Bombay: the unsung African adventurer behind the European explorers

A photograph of Albert Einstein looking into the camera

Albert Einstein: facts about his life, death, education and work

J Robert Oppenheimer (left), and Cillian Murphy

Oppenheimer: the real history of the ‘father of the atomic bomb’

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Pod Kai Bird WL

Oppenheimer: “destroyer of worlds” . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

American aviator Bessie Coleman pictured in c1922, around the time she made her debut flight. Her astonishing aerial stunts would earn her the monikers ‘Queen Bess’ and ‘Brave Bessie’ (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Bessie Coleman: a boundary-breaking pilot who fought for her dream

Joseph Chamberlain (far right) pictured with his sons Neville (far left) and Austen, daughter Hilda (front left) and third wife, Mary Endicott (Photo by Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Industrial revolution

Chamberlain and Cadbury of Birmingham The first families in Britain’s second city

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Pod David Carpenter WL

The fall and rise of Henry III . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer 5 key things to know

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, born the son of a humble yak farmer, pictured around the time of his Everest triumph of 1953 (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Tenzing Norgay The Sherpa who first conquered the world's highest mountain

'The Reward of Cruelty', 1751, by William Hogarth (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

“An enlightened turn”: how medicine (and the vaccination) developed in 18th-century Britain

Illustration by Rose Wilkinson

William Douglas: infamous bushranger, prize-fighter and reader of skulls

A c1780 portrait of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges and talented composer, violinist and swordsman (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Chevalier de Saint-Georges: how the mixed-race musical maestro Joseph Bologne became a star in 18th-century France

Stained glass in Exeter Cathedral depicting King Æthelstan. (Dreamstime)

The astonishing Æthelstan