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Top picks this week from BBC History Magazine

Winner takes all: A painting shows the French ship 'Redoutable' clashing with the British 'Temeraire'.

Trafalgar, a futile victory? Why Nelson’s triumph didn’t turn the tide on Napoleon

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Bernard Cornwell on his novels

Uncertain futures: Children of black American servicemen and white British women often spent time in case, such as this group photographed at Holnicote House in Somerset. (Photo by Lesley York – Author provided)

Mixed-race babies born after the Second World War

Children at the Berlin Wall on Sebastianstrasse, Berlin - Kreuzberg - in around 1964. (Photo by Lehnartz/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

The secret history of the Berlin Wall

EEmily Davison is felled by King Edward VII’s horse, Anmer, moments after trying to grab his reins during the running of the Derby, 4 June 1913. The suffragette suffered a fractured skull and internal injuries. She died four days later. (Getty)

Emily Davison: the suffragette martyr

Henry Fitzroy

Henry Fitzroy: how Henry VIII’s “bastard son” rocked the Tudor court

A painting of the Tudor succession

The truth about the Tudors: what 5 kings and queens were really like behind closed doors

A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I painted by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

How Shakespeare rewrote history

In his native Como, Pliny the Younger's fame is reflected in his statue on the city cathedral's imposing west front, which was built in the 15th century. (Image by AKG Images)

Pliny’s Rome: Vesuvius, vice and vestal virgins

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The brilliance of Henry James

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The Knights Templar

As the second series of Knightfall continues, read more about the 700-year-old tale of the Knights Templar…

The burning of Templars, from ‘De casibus virorum illustrium’ by Giovanni Boccaccio. Found in the collection of the British Library. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The Templars: a brief history

The Temple Church, London, a late 12th-century church built for and by the Knights Templar. (Photo by LatitudeStock - David Williams/Getty Images)

History explorer: The Knights Templar

The burning of Templars (From: De casibus virorum illustrium by Giovanni Boccaccio). Artist: Master of the White inscriptions (active ca 1480)

The Templars on trial: a very muted inquisition

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Second World War

D-Day and the Templar on trial

Read more about the Knights Templar

Queens who shaped history

From Eleanor of Aquitaine to Anne Boleyn...

A statue of the English queen Matilda in Luxembourg Garden, Paris. (Photo by Waring Abbott/Getty Images)

Matilda: William the Conqueror’s queen

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The mourning of Queen Victoria

Princess Elizabeth 1939

The young Elizabeth II: life before she was Queen

Mary Stuart, shown here in a painting after Nicholas Hilliard, might have been a good queen, says Kate Williams, but the odds were stacked against her. (Image by Superstock)

Who betrayed Mary, Queen Of Scots?

Portrait of Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, 1536. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

Henry VIII’s six wives in a different light

A portrait of Elizabeth I, who, says Susan Doran, “confounded her Catholic enemies, imposed her will on the political scene, turned England into a strong Protestant state and presided over a glittering court culture”. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I: the great unifier

More British queens

Brexit

The history behind Britain’s decision to leave the European Union…

(Photo by Alamy)

Brexit lessons from history

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Why has Britain decided to leave the EU?

(Illustration by Davide Bonazzi for BBC History Magazine)

The big question: has the European Union been a success?

Simon Jenkins and Kathleen Burk on the history of Europe

A half-hour history of Europe

Britain decides: the first European referendum

Issues

July 2019 issue of BBC History Magazine

July 2019

June 2019 issue of BBC History Magazine

June 2019

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May 2019

April 2019 issue of BBC History Magazine, featuring King John

April 2019

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Podcasts

Our twice weekly podcast featuring topics ranging from crusading knights to Tudor monarchs and the D-Day landings. You can now listen to more than 350 episodes of the History Extra podcast…

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The Mali empire: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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The BBC at 100: political tensions in the 1970s and 80s . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Episode 8 Ancestors, families and DNA . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Living through Partition

How to escape the tower

The East India Company and Nelson

The Tudors

Portrait Of Edward Seymour (Colorized)

Edward Seymour: the fall of the dithering dictator

A portrait of Queen Elizabeth I painted by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

How Shakespeare rewrote history

Travelling Mass set, c1535, consisting of a silver-gilt chalice; a paten (Communion plate) and a glass bottle for wine, with a leather box in which to carry them. (Photo by Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Henry VIII’s savage Reformation

A painting of the Tudor succession

The truth about the Tudors: what 5 kings and queens were really like behind closed doors

A portrait of Catherine Howard. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Catherine Howard: The death of innocence

(Photo By DEA/G DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

The Tudor sex guide

More Tudor history

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Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, c1507-1536. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Guilty or not guilty: why did Anne Boleyn have to die?

A portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with five of their nine children, by Frederick Winterhalter. (Photo by © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: was their union a marriage of misery?

Our illustration shows Thomas Boleyn, whose flair for diplomacy and mastery of languages made him one of Henry VIII's most trusted ambassadors. (Illustration by Sean McSorley)

Thomas Boleyn: why Anne Boleyn’s father was more than a grasping courtier

A portrait of Elizabeth of York

Elizabeth of York: a Tudor of rare talent

The Middle Ages

Everything you need to know about the medieval period...

King John hunting on horseback

Was King John really that bad? Yes!

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First World War

The legend of King Arthur and fighter pilots

Detail from The Last Judgement, a fresco in the Sistine Chapel painted by the Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo. The scene depicts the Second Coming of Christ and the final judgement of all humanity. (Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

Medieval zombies: how the walking dead haunted the Middle Ages

Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in mounted combat

Richard the Lionheart: king of war

A 14th-century Flemish illustration depicting the burying of plague victims in coffins in Tournai in 1349. (Photo by Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Black Death: “Oh father, why have you abandoned me?”

Two scenes from the Chronique de St Denis, late 14th century. The left-hand scene depicts the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Louis VII of France in 1137. The scene on the right shows Louis departing by ship to go on the Second Crusade in 1147. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Eleanor of Aquitaine: the medieval queen who took on Europe’s most powerful men

More medieval history

The Romans

A marble bust of the Emperor Hadrian who ruled from AD 117 to 138

Hadrian’s travels

A relief portrays patrons of a Roman tavern. (Photo By DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

The dangerous streets of ancient Rome

A group of five marble busts of typical early Roman citizens. The empire expanded by absorbing the peoples it defeated, giving rights and obligations to former outsiders. (Photo by Gjon Mili/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Mary Beard on why Rome ruled the world

A 1985 production of 'Julius Caesar'. For all their despotism, Romans thanked their first three emperors for delivering them from the curse of civil war. (Photo by Jean-Jacques BERNIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The glorious Caesars

First World War

Roman slavery and the man who started the First World War

View towards Steel Rigg from Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria. (Photo by VisitBritain/Rod Edwards via Getty Images)

History explorer: Early Roman Britain

More on the Romans

The Second World War

Everything you need to know...

A portrait of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler

Second World War

Why did WW2 happen?

Schoolchildren helping workmen construct a new estate of pre-fabricated houses in Watford, Hertfordshire in 1946 following the devastation of the Second World War. (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Second World War

Postwar squatters: a very British uprising

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Second World War

Second World War arctic convoys

Clean-up crews salvaging what they can from the ruins of buildings in Hornsey, a north London suburb, 1944. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Second World War

Hitler’s secret weapon

British evacuees from Dunkirk walk off their rescue vessel land in Britain. (Photo by Corbis via Getty Images)

Second World War

Where history happened: Dunkirk

Russian and Polish women liberated from a forced labour camp

Second World War

Voices of the Holocaust

British ordinance workers put the final touches to anti-aircraft gun barrels, c1940. (Photo by Hudson/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

Second World War

A colossus at war

Douglas Bader.

My history hero: Douglas Bader (1910–82)

Benito Mussolini

Second World War

Mussolini’s willing followers

German scientists Dr Carl Eisenmann, Dr Mersch, Dr Trabat and Dr Stocklin. (Express/Getty Images)

Second World War

The intelligence war for German scientists