Military history

Colditz captives including (third left) the famous escapee Pat Reid.

Second World War

Ben McIntyre on Colditz: “The reality of Colditz is much more interesting than the black-and-white moral fable”

This statue of Alfred the Great stands in Winchester, the former 'capital' of his kingdom (Photo by TonyBaggett via Getty Images)

What if... Alfred the Great lost to the Vikings at the battle of Edington?

On Havana waterfront, Cuban soldiers wait by anti-aircraft artillery, after receiving warning of an invasion from the United States

Max Hastings "If the Americans had bombed Cuba in 1962, escalation would have been almost inevitable"

A member of a Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) patrol, May 1942

Second World War

Desert raiders: the Long Range Desert Group in the Second World War

A German soldier captured during the battle of Kursk, July–August 1943. Germany’s last major offensive on the eastern front ended in crushing defeat (Photo by STF/AFP/ GettyImages)

Second World War

Bitter end: Hitler’s downfall and the end of the war and the Third Reich

Grave of a fallen soldier in World War I

First World War

“Their name liveth for evermore”: the difficult task of locating, identifying and honouring the dead of WW1

King Henry V (left) in a late-16th- or early 17th-century portrait by an unknown artist; and his son Henry VI (right) in a c1500s portrait (Photos by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Why Henry VI’s reign was such a disaster

A still from a new adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front shows actor Felix Kammerer as a WW1 soldie

First World War

All Quiet on the Western Front inspiration: “As Remarque said, war is not an adventure. There’s nothing glorious about it”

Ben Foster as Jan Žižka in 'Medieval' (2022). (Photo by Alamy)

Jan Žižka: one of history’s greatest military leaders, who was blind but undefeated

Photo of the SAS in North Africa

Second World War

The real ‘Rogue Heroes’ of the early SAS

War and Conflict, Malaya, pic: 1953, British troops of the Special Air Service (SAS) with a helicopter, having been dropped off in the jungle in search of bandits (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)

In a nutshell The history of the SAS

The Battle of Lipany or Lipan, also called the Battle of Cesky Brod, on 30 May 1434 virtually ended the Hussite Wars (Picture by Alamy)

In a nutshell The Hussite Wars

Afghan fighters on top of a destroyed Soviet helicopter, 1980 (Photo by Alain Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images)

War without end: conflict in Afghanistan, from the Cold War Soviet invasion to the Taliban

The Mary Rose shown in the Anthony Roll (1546), a record of Henry VIII’s navy

Six theories What caused the Mary Rose to sink?

Russian men called up to fight attend a ceremony to mark their departure

Russia-Ukraine conflict How the latest developments echo the Second World War