The charge of the light, battle illustration

Military history

Male and female militia fighters on the march at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, July 1936. (Photo by Getty Images)

The Spanish Civil War: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Marble relief depicting the Praetorian Guard, legionnaires and elite soldiers. In the Louvre, Paris, France. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

The Praetorian Guard: the emperors’ fatal servants

Historian Peter Caddick-Adams

Exclusive podcastPeter Caddick Adams on whether D-Day could have failed. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The 11th East Africa Infantry Division fought with the British Fourteenth Army in Burma (Myanmar) during the Burma Campaign, 1944. (Photo by Alamy)

Victory in the east. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Photographs documenting the facial reconstruction of a soldier whose cheek was extensively wounded during the Battle of the Somme

What happened to the 8 million people who were disabled during WW1?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Night view of people jammed into Times Square, New York, celebrating the end of the war in Europe. (Photo by Herbert Gehr/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty

Was 1945 the world's zero?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hiroshima.

Second World War

The end of WW2: 5 articles you can read right now

Mural of the battle of Actium from 1600

Actium, 31 BC: the beginning of the end for Mark Antony and Cleopatra

Attila the Hun

General ancient history

Who was Attila the Hun, the barbarian ruler who terrorised the Romans?

The American Civil War: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A bust of Roman dictator Julius Caesar

Julius CaesarYour guide to the Roman dictator

First World War

WW1 poets5 famous figures you should know about

Egyptian ships sunk at the entrance of the Suez Canal at Port Said

Your guide to...the Suez Crisis

The battle of First Bar, 1841

Your guide to...the Opium Wars

Lionheart of stone: the medieval statue debate. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The original ‘Big Three’ at Livadia Palace in Yalta: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. None of them came away from the summit with everything they had hoped for. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Second World War

Your guide to...The Yalta and Potsdam conferences, 1945

The capture of Jerusalem in 1099

How the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The death of a dream: why Europe's great year of revolution in 1848 failed

The Cuban Missile Crisis: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Winston Churchill gives his famous v-sign. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

From Winston Churchill to the Bengal famine: are we in denial about our role in WW2?

A group of fighter pilots of No. 32 Squadron relax beside their Hawker Hurricane Mk I fighters at RAF Hawkinge in July 1940

The Few: who exactly were the heroes of the Battle of Britain?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Adolf Hitler photographed with Nazi war generals

Second World War

What was Operation Sealion, Hitler’s planned invasion of Britain? And why was it cancelled?

Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, Painting by Emile Signol (1804–1892), (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

BlogMedieval(ish) matters 11: Did women fight in the crusades? And why did people follow a goose to the Holy Land?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The bronze equestrian statue of Robert the Bruce looks out over the site of the Battle of Bannockburn, Stirling, where the Scottish fought for their independence from the English in 1314. (Photo by Getty Images)

The Scottish Wars of Independence: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Women and the crusades. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Elizabeth I arrives in Tilbury

The Spanish Armada: one of history’s biggest fibs?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

World War Two: the challenge of commemoration. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A girl, with her brother on her back, trudges past a stalled American tank, South Korea, June 1951. (Photo by Alamy)

How we forgot the Korean War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

John Nichol is a historian, author and RAF veteran who was captured and paraded on Iraqi television during the Gulf War, before returning to active service. He has since written several works of military history as well as a number of novels, and is a regular commentator on military affairs

Second World War

Your guide to the Lancaster bomber

Queen Emma and her sons

Exclusive podcastWilliam and Cnut: a tale of two conquerors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.