Crime and punishment

People gather around the Mona Lisa painting after its return in January 1914

Mona Lisa heist: how do you steal the world’s most famous painting?

A 19th-century painting of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

What if… Abraham Lincoln hadn't been assassinated?

What is history's greatest mystery?

What has been voted history’s greatest mystery?

A portrait of Thomas Cromwell.

The downfall of Thomas Cromwell

The Kray brothers

The A-Z of British gangs and gangsters

Four Murder, Inc hitmen are questioned by detectives

Murder, Inc: the rise and fall of New York City’s mafia hitmen

A photograph of Rudolph Hoess during his trial in Warsaw in 1947. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Second World War

Rudolf Höss & the men behind the mass murder at Auschwitz

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

The real history behind Victorian thriller ‘The Limehouse Golem’

Left: Hungarian Jews arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau, in German-occupied Poland, in June 1944. Between May and July that year, more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the camp complex. Right: Prisoners at Dachau celebrate the liberation of the camp by US soldiers on 29 April 1945. The camp was used again after the war to house SS personnel awaiting trial, and then German refugees. (Photos by Getty Images and Alamy)

Second World War

Aftermath of the Holocaust: how Europe dealt with the crimes of the Third Reich

Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester

Amy Robsart: a Tudor tragedy

A police officer uses his baton on a protester in Glasgow, 1919

1919: Britain’s red summer

Two girls are tried for witchcraft in a courtroom scene

What were the Salem Witch Trials?

Abraham Lincoln (Photo by Library of Congress)

The secret plot to kill Lincoln

Angel-of-death-2-42d2a16

Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London

The pirate John Avery and his crew capture the the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb 's ship in the Indian ocean in the late 17th century. (Photo by Getty Images)

Henry Avery: the legendary 17th-century pirate