Crime and punishment - Getty Images

Crime and punishment

Portrait of John Wilkes Booth

Why did John Wilkes Booth kill Abraham Lincoln? And how was he caught?

Sir Walter Raleigh, a portrait of the great favourite of Queen Elizabeth I

Q&AWhy was Sir Walter Raleigh executed?

Alcatraz: everything you wanted to know.

English highwayman Dick Turpin is pictured astride his horse, leaping over a gate, as he flees his pursuers

The extraordinary legend of highwayman Dick Turpin

ConspiracyWho killed JFK?

An illustration of a crow chasing a silhouette of a man running away in the distance

The supernatural signs that unmasked murderers in early modern England.

Statue of William Wallace in Aberdeen

General History

Traitor or FaithfulBritish history's most notorious treason cases

Alice Mitchell stabs her lover, Freda Ward, to death, shown in a contemporary illustration. A court declared that the killing was an act of insanity.

Victorian murder scandalsWhat six killings tell us about women's lives in the 19th century.

Video podcastMarshal Pétain: Vichy France in the dock.

Lord Lucan with his future wife Veronica Duncan. He is in a suit and she's wearing a smart outfit.

Lord Lucan's disappearance

Jesse Plemons as lawman Tom White

Who was Tom White in Killers of the Flower Moon?

Actor Lily Gladstone (left) plays Mollie Burkhart

The real history behind Killers of the Flower Moon: author explains true story of Osage Nation

Ships in battle on the sea

General Early Modern

When pirates ruled Asia's waves

A purported portrait of Elizabeth Báthory as a young woman

General Early Modern

Elizabeth Báthory: a 17th-century 'serial killer'

A ring of poisoners: Hungary’s most notorious murders.

The newly-completed Central Criminal Court in the City of London, known as the Old Bailey.

Historical Cold CasesThe Murder Of ‘Madame X’.

Athénaïs de Montespan, one of the official mistresses of Louis XIV, was a suspect in a scandalous plot to murder the French king (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The Affair of the Poisons: who plotted to kill King Louis XIV?.

Juneteenth celebrations, also known as Emancipation Day, in Texas, 1900

JuneteenthWhat is it, historians on its relevance, and 9 articles you should read

Penal transportation to Australia: everything you wanted to know.

An illustration of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, fleeing from battle after attempting to unseat his Catholic uncle, King James II and VII, from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland (Photo by De Luan/Alamy Stock Photo)

The Monmouth Rebellion of 1685: your guide to the a duke's failed bid to overthrow his uncle, James II and VI.

The Duke of Cumberland leans awat from two ghostly men, wearing white robes and wielding razor blades, as smoke rises around them

Royals on the stand: how Queen Charlotte’s son the Duke of Cumberland faced down a libel scandal.

(l-r): Thomas Turgoose, Charlotte Ockelton, Sophie McShera and Michael Socha star as members of the Hartley clan in BBC Two series The Gallows Pole (Photo by BBC Pictures)

The Gallows PoleThe true story of the Cragg Vale Coiners

Police news

Nell Darby's historical cold casesThe Hoxton Horror.

Illustration by Rose Wilkinson

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

The debtors’ exercise grounds at Newgate prison in 1809. The debtors’ prison was a feature of everyday life in 18th-century England (Photo by Rischgitz/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Inside debtors’ prisons: what life was like for people jailed in Georgian Britain.

A painting depicts Frederica, the bride- to-be of Frederick, Duke of York, meeting in-laws George III and Queen Charlotte for the first time

The scandals that rocked Queen Charlotte's court

A report about the murder from an edition of the Daily News and Westminster Gazette. Despite gaining national press coverage, the case is largely forgotten today.

Nell Darby's historical cold casesThe parents who never recovered.

Burke and Hare

Burke and HareLisa Rosner on the pair's crime spree.

Queen Victoria

Assassinating Queen Victoria: the men who attempted to murder the monarch

An 1812 cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson depicts highwaymen in action in the days when travellers made for easy pickings for criminals (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Murder and mayhem in Georgian Britain: the scandalous work of Johnson's General History.