Crime and punishment

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

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

Photo of the display cabinet where the World Cup was stolen

What a pickle: how England lost, found and won the World Cup in a single year

Kate Morgan chronicles the legal history of murder, discussing the cases that shaped UK murder laws. (Image by Getty Images)

Murder: a legal history

Victorian London prison, Newgate. Prisoners in the exercise yard. Engraving by Gustave Doré, 1872 (Photo by Getty Images)

British prisons: everything you wanted to know

Prisoners exercise and play sport in the courtyard of the Fleet Prison, circa 1872

Timeline: a history of prisons in Britain

Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the ‘golden age’ of piracy, when bands of buccaneers menaced the high seas, preying on merchant vessels.

The golden age of piracy: everything you wanted to know

Ralph Hope reveals how officers of the notorious East German security service sought to reinvent themselves after the fall of the Berlin Wall

What the Stasi did next

Jane Rogoyska explains how more than 20,000 Polish prisoners-of-war were murdered on Stalin’s orders in 1940, and explores the decades-long coverup that followed. (Image by Getty Images)

Second World War

Uncovering the truth about WW2’s Katyn massacre

Historian Timothy Hickman answers listener questions about the ban on booze in 1920s America, from speakeasies and moonshine to Al Capone’s shady dealings. (Image by Getty Images)

Prohibition: everything you wanted to know

Alcohol is poured away into a New York sewer during the prohibition era, c1920

Prohibition quiz: how much do you know about the US ban on booze?

British troops guard a wall during the Irish War of Independence, which bears a nationalist message

The Irish Republican Army: a brief guide

Nathen Amin discusses the plots and conspiracies that threatened to unseat Henry VII from his throne. (Illustration by Eleanor Taylor)

The pretenders who threatened Henry VII’s crown

Joanna Bourke explores what ideas about ‘evil women’ can tell us about societal values through history. (Image by Getty Images)

Why are we fascinated by ‘evil women’?

Four knights hack Thomas Becket to death

Europe’s greatest martyr: how Thomas Becket rose from the dead

17th century engraving showing the execution by hanging of four witches. (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images)

Quiz: Would you have been accused of witchcraft?