Crime and punishment - Getty Images

Crime and punishment

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

Timeline: a history of prisons in Britain

The golden age of piracy: everything you wanted to know

What the Stasi did next

Uncovering the truth about WW2’s Katyn massacre

Painting of Napoleon in St Helena

Napoleon on St Helena: how exile became the French emperor's last battle

Prohibition: everything you wanted to know

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

QuizProhibition: 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

The pretenders who threatened Henry VII’s crown

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)

QuizWould you have been accused of witchcraft?

Women prisoners in 19th-century Ireland

Charles Sobhraj (centre) pictured in 2011, while trying to sue the Nepalese government for unlawful imprisonment

The real history of The Serpent: the true story of Charles Sobhraj

Traffickers on trial: the sensational case of Lydia Harvey

The Irregulars. From left to right: Prince Leopold (Harrison Osterfield), Jessie (Darci Shaw), Bea(Thaddea Graham), Spike (McKell David), and Billy (Jojo Macari)

The Irregulars: the real history behind Netflix’s supernatural Sherlock spinoff

Hate mail & mutilated horses: Conan Doyle investigates

George Edalji and the Great Wyrley killings: a real-life Sherlock Holmes mystery

Assassinations: from the ancient world to JFK

Why treason was so unforgivable in the Middle Ages

'Pirate queen' Grace O'Malley. (Illustration by Sue Gent for BBC History Revealed)

Grace O’Malley: the fearless pirate queen of Ireland

The assassination of Julius Caesar

What if…Julius Caesar had not been assassinated?

Picture depicting the Cato Street conspirators

To kill the cabinet: the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820

Dr Jenna Dittmar, who has been studying medieval skeletons, reveals what her findings can tell us about injuries and violence in the era. (Image by Getty Images)

Fatal accidents and violent injuries in the Middle Ages

This image from the Nibelungenlied manuscript shows Pilgrim welcoming Kriemhild, a fictional character described as his neice in the text (Photo by Alamy)

The forged texts of the Middle Ages: why Europe's holy men turned to counterfeiting

The hunt for Caesar’s killers

Richard Nixon resigns

Which US presidents have been impeached? A brief history of presidential impeachment

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie in profile: facts about her life

Queen Victoria

The Victorians and the British Empire: a brief guide and timeline

Thomas Becket: from murder to martyrdom