HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-03-13T17:31:05.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything
items: 12 modern trends with surprisingly ancient roots
items: The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
items: The royal family | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
items: Porpoise for breakfast and late night sex visits: Henry VIII's life in a day
items: What was the Habsburg jaw?
items: Star witness: how the Royal Observatory transformed our understanding of astronomy and time
items: Not 1066 again! Should we ditch our obsession with dates?
items: From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houses
items: BORN to be king!? Dan Jones and Helen Castor anatomise Henry IV

What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything
type: item
date: 2026-03-13T17:30:55.000Z
creator: Dr Owen Emmerson
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: British queens
subject: Henry VIII's wives
subject: Royal weddings
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: Dark or brunette? Fair or swarthy? A paragon of beauty or a refined charmer? Our picture of Henry VIII’s ill-fated second queen has become distorted over five centuries – but new research by Owen Emmerson and others comes closer to revealing her true appearance
encoded: Close your eyes and picture Anne Boleyn. Chances are you can conjure up a pretty clear and detailed image in your imagination – because few figures in English history seem as visually familiar as Henry VIII’s second queen. Representations of her face appear everywhere: in films, television dramas and novels, in museum gift shops and digital reconstructions. She is often depicted in popular culture as an elegant brunette whose sophistication distinguishes her from others at court. Over time, this image has hardened into something close to fact. Anne Boleyn, we are told, was devastatingly beautiful. Yet this certainty is built on fragile foundations, and surviving evidence provides a less concrete understanding of Anne’s appearance. No formal painted portraits from life survive today, though images in a number of smaller, more intimate formats – particularly miniatures – are candidates for having captured her true likeness based on contemporary encounters. The more-familiar portraits featuring the now-iconic ‘B’ pendant necklace, meanwhile, were likely created decades later, influenced by politics, artistic convention and hindsight. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/DXFXNM-38bec64-e1773309603951.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A woman with long dark braids, wearing a white period-style gown, sits on a cushioned bed and gently holds a baby wrapped in richly patterned blue and gold fabric. Dark wooden furniture and white bedding frame the intimate, historical-feeling scene" title="Natalie Dormer played Anne Boleyn in the television series The Tudors, which perpetuated modern ideas of the ill-fated queen as a dark-haired beauty (Image by Alamy)" /> For generations, historians assumed that any accurate representations created during Anne’s life had been lost altogether, erased after her execution in 1536 on the orders of Henry VIII. That story is compelling, but it is wrong. My research – which underpins Capturing a Queen: T…

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12 modern trends with surprisingly ancient roots
type: item
date: 2026-03-08T15:30:09.000Z
creator: Hilary Mitchell
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
description: From dance competitions to viral memes, there are some features of everyday life that feel firmly rooted in the 21st century. However, there are plenty of fads and crazes that are much older than you think, as Hilary Mitchell reveals
encoded: 1. Cooking competitions Long before MasterChef, cooks in medieval Iraq also competed for culinary glory. In the 10th century, a collection of recipes from eighth and ninth-century Baghdad were compiled into a recipe book called Kitāb al-ṭabīkh (‘The Book of Dishes’) by Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq. As well as recipes, the book also includes fascinating accounts of what could be described as very early cookery competitions. They weren’t long-running, weekly tournaments like those we see on TV, but they were still prestigious culinary events, usually staged in elite households, which allowed rival chefs to showcase their talents. In one section that sounds very much like a challenge from The Great British Bake Off, al-Warrāq describes banquets where different chefs’ versions of the same dish were compared and judged by their patrons. There’s also another anecdote (recounted in later culinary literature) about the caliph al-Ma’mūn challenging his cooks to produce dishes using unexpected ingredients – like an early version of Ready Steady Cook. 2. Online gossip These days, gossip pages like Deuxmoi – a popular, mostly anonymous Instagram account that shares insider info about well-known people – are a staple of social media sites. However, it’s certainly not a new phenomenon. People in ancient Mesopotamia were gossiping about the elite and writing down the most salacious rumours about them. Cuneiform tablets written around 1800–1760 BC record a Mesopotamian mayor’s shocking affair with a married woman. An official spills the tea, writing to the king to say that the mayor of the city has been “lying with another man’s wife”, and explaining that the citizens are all outraged; everyone in the city is talking about the scandal. The tablet is part of a group of Old Babylonian cuneiform tablets found at ancient Mari – modern Tell Hariri – in Syria, the majority of which take the form of messages sent to King Zimri-Lim about various goings-on in his country. It’s not quite an Instagra…

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The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T15:30:45.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Georgian
subject: Historical people
subject: Royal children
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The royal family
description: At a time when the royal family is under significant strain, historians shine a spotlight on some of the biggest crises to have enveloped the British monarchy over the past three centuries
encoded: The prince, the brothel and a culture war Katie Hindmarch-Watson describes a sex scandal that consumed Queen Victoria’s grandson On 7 July 1889, a policeman arrested a sometime telegraph boy, Henry Newlove, at his mother’s house in Camden Town. Newlove had been recruiting younger telegraph boys at London’s Central Telegraph Office to provide sexual services for affluent male clients at a brothel on Cleveland Street. Defiant, Newlove said that he thought it “very hard that I should get into trouble while men in high position are allowed to walk around free… Why, Lord Arthur Somerset goes regularly to the house at Cleveland Street; so does the Earl of Euston and Colonel Jervois.” Within months, Newlove was in prison and Somerset was in exile. Yet Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston, triumphed in a libel suit that exonerated him from any “gross indecency”, and Colonel Jervois received no further mention in police records or the press. However, another man in high position became the focus of speculation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL11686324webready-dfc0737-e1770036564257.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A newspaper depicting several scenes of men in top hats and young boys standing in the street" title="The Cleveland Street Scandal, as reported in The Illustrated Police News on 25 January 1890. The affair – which embroiled Prince Albert Victor – “evolved into a morality tale about rich men’s predatory vices” (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> We still don’t really know why Prince Albert Victor – or ‘Eddy’, grandson of Queen Victoria and oldest son of the Prince of Wales – became linked to the story. Arthur Somerset had been his father’s equerry, but there is no evidence that the two men associated with one another, and no proof has emerged one way or another about Eddy’s propensity for sex with teenage telegraph boys. The Cleveland Street Scandal evolved from Newlove’s revelations into a morality tale about rich men’s pred…

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The royal family | Alice Loxton on the world of the Georgians
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T09:01:51.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: HistoryExtra Academy
subject: The world of the Georgians
description: In episode one of her HistoryExtra Academy series The world of the Georgians, historian Alice Loxton explores how satirical artist James Gillray took aim at the Georgian royal family, exposing excess, virtue and scandal at the very top of society.
encoded: Alice Loxton introduces the Georgian era and examines how satirical artists such as James Gillray mocked the royal family, from the frugal George III to his flamboyant and extravagant son, the Prince Regent. Through caricature, the monarchy was transformed from untouchable authority into something recognisably human – flawed, fallible and ripe for ridicule. View Green Video on the source website Want more from Alice? Find more episodes of the World of the Georgians. Alice Loxton is a historian, presenter and Sunday Times bestselling author with over three million followers on social media.

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Porpoise for breakfast and late night sex visits: Henry VIII's life in a day
type: item
date: 2025-12-05T17:00:37.000Z
creator: Tracy Borman
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: Henry VIII's wives
subject: Historical people
subject: Tudor kings and queens
subject: Tudor life
description: Ever wondered what Tudor England’s most famous monarch ate for breakfast? (Or whether breakfast was even a thing?) Tracy Borman examines Henry VIII’s daily routine – and sexual proclivities – during the year that he married Anne Boleyn
encoded: The year 1533 was a big one for Henry VIII. It began with his secret marriage to Anne Boleyn, followed a few months later by the annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The new queen was crowned in June, then in September she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I, rather than the hoped-for male heir. And as if that wasn’t enough, the Reformation parliament passed radical religious legislation that would separate the country from Rome and make Henry supreme head of the new Church of England. Amidst these seismic events, however, Henry’s daily life continued much as it had done during the previous 24 years of his reign. The Tudor court ran according to a strict routine, and nothing – not even the pope in Rome – could disrupt it. In the early years of his reign, when Henry was at the peak of his youthful vigour, he would rise at the crack of dawn and go hunting for several hours – sometimes until dusk. The courtier and diplomat Richard Pace reported to Cardinal Wolsey that, during the summer, the “King rises daily, except on holy days, at 4 or 5 o’clock and hunts till 9 or 10 at night”. Henry would get up later in the colder months, typically at around eight o’clock. But those carefree days had diminished by 1533. The king was paying much closer attention to affairs of state and was no longer living “in continuous festival”, as his first wife had put it in the early days of their marriage. Nevertheless, Henry still spent a decent amount of each day indulging in physical pursuits. Now in his early forties, he was almost as full of energy as he had been in his youth. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/13AAW7T4-d152d6f-e1764861462989.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white sketch of a man holding a large bow and arrow, with arrows across his body too. A man stands behind him and another kneels down on the ground next to him" title="A Victorian image depicts a youthful Henry VIII enjoying a spot of arc…

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What was the Habsburg jaw?
type: item
date: 2025-11-26T10:13:30.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Evergreen
description: One family was an ever-present force in European affairs from the Middle Ages to the modern era, but, as Jonny Wilkes explores, the Habsburgs’ desperate bid to keep power within the family gave them a distinctive physical callsign, as well as dynastic longevity…
encoded: For centuries, the Habsburgs were one of the most prominent royal dynasties in Europe. They ruled as kings of Germany, from the 13th century, and as archdukes of Austria from the mid-14th century. They sat on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire from the 15th to 19th centuries. Their house dominated swathes of the continent with Habsburg rulers in a host of countries, most notably Spain. But there was something else that became prominent about the Habsburgs: their jawline. What was the Habsburg jaw? Many members of the dynasty had the same physical trait of a protruding bottom jaw – a mandibular prognathism, medically speaking. The jutting chin could be so pronounced that the flattering portrait artists of the day could not manage to hide them. The condition even prevented some members of the dynasty from eating or speaking properly. Read more | The Habsburgs: the dynasty that wouldn’t die The ‘Habsburg jaw’ was a biological result from generations of inbreeding. In a bid to keep their power, the Habsburgs kept everything within the family. They relied on ‘consanguine’ marriages that partnered close relatives, such as first cousins, or uncles with their nieces. View Green Video on the source website Why did the Habsburgs intermarry so much? It’s true that close-family marriages weren’t exactly unusual among the royal houses of Europe, but the Habsburgs were the champions of consanguinity. Of the 11 marriages during the reign of the Spanish Habsburgs, from 1516 to 1700, only two were not incestuous. “The arrangement made good political sense, guaranteeing that the two lines would support each other militarily,” writes historian Martyn Rady, “which paid dividends in the Thirty Years’ War (the bloody religious conflict fought across central Europe from 1618–48). “Biologically, however, it was a disaster. As first and second-cousin and uncle-niece marriages became the norm, madness and deformity followed.” In 1517, Italian diplomat Antonio di Beatis described the future …

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Star witness: how the Royal Observatory transformed our understanding of astronomy and time
type: item
date: 2025-11-26T09:00:37.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Education
subject: Historical events
subject: Space
subject: The Restoration
description: From the moment it was founded 350 years ago, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich drove our understanding of astronomy, navigation and time. Louise Devoy explores eight milestones in the history of this pioneering scientific institution
encoded: The big bang moment 1675: Charles II sparks a star-gazing revolution In the 17th century, the great maritime nations were vying to solve a puzzle that had confounded philosophers for many centuries: how to determine exact positions on the Earth’s surface. And in Britain, Charles II took a major step to ensure his realm’s position at the head of the pack. On 4 March 1675, the king signed a royal warrant appointing John Flamsteed as the first “astronomical observator”, tasked with “perfecting the art of navigation”. Flamsteed’s specific objective was to devise a method by which sailors could establish their longitude (east–west position) at sea – which involved measuring the positions of celestial bodies – and of knowing the time at a ship’s local position. And Flamsteed would get to carry out this vital research from the surroundings of the country’s first state-funded, purpose-built scientific institution: the Royal Observatory. It was urgent work, because England’s great rival, France, had stolen a march: Louis XIV had established an observatory in Paris nearly a decade earlier. Flamsteed was, in effect, playing catch-up. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/T809MT-CMYKWeb-Ready-7606aa3.jpg" width="2663" height="1775" alt="an illustration showing a large crowd looking at several artefacts including a globe, a map, and a satellite dish" title="King Louis XIV visits the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1671. The creation of an observatory in the French capital had left England playing catch-up (Image by Alamy)" /> The size of the task facing the astronomer clearly wasn’t lost on Charles II, for the king appointed none other than the celebrated architect Christopher Wren to design the observatory. Wren’s chosen site was the hilltop ruins of Greenwich Castle – and it was here that the foundation stone was laid on 10 August 1675. With its lofty windows, royal portraits and accurate pendulum clocks, the octagonal ‘star chamber…

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Not 1066 again! Should we ditch our obsession with dates?
type: item
date: 2025-11-19T13:00:01.000Z
creator: Dr Rob Blackmore
subject: General History
subject: Magazine
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical events
description: From 1066 to 1918, our obsession with battles, elections and even voyages of discovery risks distorting a true understanding of the past
encoded: In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That, at least, is what the famous rhyme tells us. Memorising such dates is a common experience of being taught history – a cliché superbly lampooned by the witty 1930 book 1066 and All That. “History is not what you thought,” its preface suggested. “It is what you can remember.” Accordingly, as per its subtitle, it offered a “Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates.” Conspicuously, though, “two out of the four dates originally included were eliminated at the last moment” because “they are not memorable.” Though evidently both humorists, the book’s authors – Punch writers WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman – were making a serious point. History has long been thought to be concerned with preserving the past. The 12th-century historian and Byzantine princess Anna Komnene observed how “time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity”. Her solution was the study of history, which “forms a very strong bulwark against the stream of time”. This is a powerful idea – one that perhaps moved King Charles I, moments before his execution in January 1649, to utter a last single word to William Juxon, the former bishop of London, instructing him: “Remember.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/1066-and-all-that-later-edition-CMYKWeb-Ready-dfb5326.jpg" width="2295" height="1530" alt="The cover of a book, with the title 1066 And All That across the top, and two men standing side by side in green and pink clothing" title="The 1930 book 1066 and All That wittily parodied the conventional approach to teaching history in schools at that time (Image by Amazon)" /> But do our efforts to remember really require us to do something so trivial as memorising dates? More radically, do the historical events these dates mark even matter? The Oxford Eng…

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From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houses
type: item
date: 2025-10-30T15:00:03.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Castles
subject: Death
subject: Henry VIII's wives
description: From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers, Caitlin Blackwell Baines introduces us to the terrifying cast of phantoms said to dwell within the nation’s spookiest homes
encoded: 1. Stirling Castle, Scotland From elusive sea monsters to shrieking banshees, Scotland is home to a host of supernatural beings – including, of course, ghosts. One of their best-known spectral celebrities is the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, who is said to haunt a staggering 10 properties, making her, perhaps, the best-travelled ghost in the nation. Among her main haunts is Stirling Castle, her childhood home in central Scotland. Perched atop a volcanic crag, surrounded by cliffs overlooking the River Forth, Stirling Castle was constructed in the early 12th century, originally as a military stronghold, acting as a strategic line of defence during the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1357). However, almost from the very beginning, Stirling was also a favourite royal residence. By the time a young Mary Stuart lived there in the 1540s, it was as much a palace as it was a fortress: her father, James V, had transformed it into one of the most opulent homes in Renaissance Britain. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Stirling-Castle-Bannockburn-1-8d83973.jpg" width="1200" height="960" alt="A large brown castle stands on a tree-covered hill, against a dark grey cloudy sky" title="Stirling Castle is one of several historic buildings said to be haunted by the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots – the ill-fated monarch who was imprisoned – and executed – upon the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I (Image by SpookyScotland.net)" /> Whatever happy childhood memories Mary may have had of Stirling would be tainted by the events of 21 April 1567. It was here on this day that the embattled queen would see her infant son (the future King James VI & I) for the last time. Soon after, she was forced to abdicate, flee the country, and eventually, in 1587, she was executed for treason under the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I. Perhaps it is for this reason that the melancholy monarch returns to the castle, perpetually searching for her long-lost ch…

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BORN to be king!? Dan Jones and Helen Castor anatomise Henry IV
type: item
date: 2025-10-28T07:01:21.000Z
creator: Emily Briffett
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Dan Jones and Helen Castor delve into the turbulent life and reign of Henry Bolingbroke, to explore how he became the usurper Henry IV
encoded: Henry Bolingbroke has gone down in history as the usurper that stole the English crown from the tyrant Richard II – and was later plagued by rebellion and ill health. But is this all there was to the man who later became Henry IV? In the second episode of our three-part HistoryExtra podcast series 'Tyrant, Usurper, Hero', Dan Jones speaks to Helen Castor to reveal more about the chivalric hero, who could have made the ideal king had he truly been born into the royal role. Watch now, or listen to the ad-free podcast below: View Green Video on the source website (Ad) Helen Castor is the author of The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV (Penguin, 2024). Buy it now from Waterstones (Ad) Dan Jones is the author of Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England's Greatest Warrior King (Bloomsbury, 2024). Buy it now from Waterstones

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