The charge of the light, battle illustration

Military history

An illustration of Nikephoros II. (Photo by INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo)

A big day in history: the all-conquering Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II loses his head.

Guy Gibson (centre) with members of his squadron. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The triumph of the Dambusters.

The prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III. Famous for being the location of the ‘Great Escape’, it was home to Ron Last for ten months. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The long road home.

Francisco Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru John Everett Millais. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

A big day in history: Francisco Pizarro's tiny Spanish army takes a mighty Incan leader hostage.

BBC History Magazine

Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-forgotten Europe

Dambusters.

English soldiers in the ruins of Palmyre in charge of taking over the Syrian Territory occupied by Vichy’s France. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

The untold Second World War.

BBC History Magazine

Perilous Glory: The Rise of Western Military Power

BBC History Magazine

Battle numbers

In his last official photo, Adolf Hitler leaves the safety of his bunker to award decorations to members of Hitler Youth. (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Why did the Nazis fight to the death?.

BBC History Magazine

Imperial Endgame

Back to school and Hitler's schemes for war.

Clean-up crews salvaging what they can from the ruins of buildings in Hornsey, a north London suburb, 1944. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Hitler's secret weapon.

A Saracen attack on Crusaders, from the French manuscript 'Chroniques de Saint Denis', c1200. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Traders and crusaders.

BBC History Magazine

The British Confederate

Second World War

Aerial bombing

Operation Barbarossa, which began on 22 June 1941, saw more than three million German troops surge into the Soviet Union along a front of more than 1,000 miles. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Barbarossa and Britain.

The Saint-Quentin canal, part of the Germans’ Hindenburg Line, which the Allies broke through on Sunday 29 September 1918. (Photo by 2nd Lt. D McLellan/ IWM via Getty Images)

The LibraryWhy didn’t the Allies march on Berlin in 1918?.

German Spring Offensive: reserve troops in Saint Quentin on their way to the front, March 1918. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

How the war was won.

My history hero: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938).

In search of the Dunkirk spirit.

News for the BBC's Domesday Project and the future of the National Archives.

BBC History Magazine

Acclaimed military historian Professor Richard Holmes has died

A colossus at war.

Q&A: Why didn’t Britain attempt to hinder Italy’s 1935 invasion of Abyssinia by preventing the Italian fleet from using the Suez Canal?.

My history hero: Douglas Bader (1910–82)

Civil rights and the Civil War.

Two women from South America. Six centuries ago South American civilisations matched the west in some respects. (Getty Images)

The wonder of the west

My history hero: Abba Kovner (1918–87).

BBC History Magazine

An Atlas of the Peninsular War