Crime and punishment

Hungarian Jews arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1944

The liberation of Auschwitz, 75 years on: what happened and how do we remember the Holocaust?

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie in profile: facts about her life

Prohibition protesters parade in a car emblazoned with signs and flags calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment, which outlawed the production and consumption of alcohol in the United States. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

“A great social experiment”: a brief guide to prohibition

Bill Nighy and Olivia Cooke in 'The Limehouse Golem'.

The real history behind Victorian thriller ‘The Limehouse Golem’

Hallie Rubenhold photographed in London. "In the 19th century, being both poor and a woman was a terrible combination. The cards were stacked against them," she says. (Photography by Fran Monks)

Hallie Rubenhold: “To most people, the women killed by the Ripper are just corpses. I want to tell a different story”

Actress Sarah Bernhardt, who was personally invited by Oscar Wilde to play the title role in the upcoming London premiere of his play, 'Salomé'.

6 of London theatre’s most notable historical scandals

In 1733, as part of a plot to blow up a Protestant church, a group of Catholics claimed they were being terrorised by a poltergeist… or so the story went. (Illustration by Ben Jones for BBC History Magazine)

5 Georgian ghost hoaxes

Capone (in the plain white hat) leaves court after being found guilty in 1931. As well as receiving a prison sentence, he was also made to pay his taxes. (Image by Alamy)

Al Capone’s conviction for tax evasion: a brief guide

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

The French Revolution through 7 severed heads

Illustration of pirate John Ward

Pirate John Ward: the real Captain Jack Sparrow

Billy Fullerton, gang chief of the Glasgow gang the Billy Boys

Who were the real Billy Boys, the Glasgow gang in Peaky Blinders?

A cartoon from 1862 shows a pair 'garroters' attacking a victim. (Photo by The Cartoon Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Gangs and knife-crime fears: how has Britain responded through history?

Tyburn, just north of Marble Arch, served as the capital's hanging spot for centuries. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

An A-Z guide to the history of executions

Hallie Rubenhold.

“The lives of Jack the Ripper’s victims were not what we have been conditioned to believe”: 5 minutes with Hallie Rubenhold

A real Peaky Blinder mug-shot

In pictures: what did the real Peaky Blinders look like?