Military history

Max Hastings on the HistoryExtra podcast

Second World War

The story of the Dambusters

Silence in Piccadilly Circus, London as people commemorate the anniversary of the end of the First World War. (Photo by Daily Mail / Rex Features)

First World War

From the first Remembrance Day to remembrance today

Roger Moorhouse on the HistoryExtra podcast

Second World War

Poland 1939: The invasion that sparked WW2

Rowland White explores the Falklands War through the story of the Sea Harrier jump jet. (Image by Getty Images)

The Falklands War in the air

Stephen Bourne on Black soldiers in WW2

Second World War

Black Britons in WW2

Image depicting Roman general Germanicus oversing the burial of the bones of Romans killed in the battle of Teutoburg Forest

What was the Roman Empire’s greatest defeat? It might be Teutoburg Forest in AD 9

The Varangian Guard as depicted in the illuminated 12th-century manuscript known as the Madrid Skylitzes. These Viking warriors became the Byzantine emperors' personal bodyguard

What was the Varangian Guard? A brief history of the Viking warriors of the Byzantine empire

A painting by Louis Philippe Crepin depicting the battle of Trafalgar, 1805. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

The battle of Trafalgar, hour by hour: what happened and why did Britain win?

Illustration shows James IV ceding his crown following defeat at the battle of Flodden. (Picture by Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo)

Your guide to the battle of Flodden 1513

A section of the Bayeux Tapestry depicting Harold Godwinson being crowned king of England. Harold was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England and was killed by William, Duke of Normandy at the battle of Hastings in 1066. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

1066: eight days that rocked England

Edward the Confessor seated at a banquet

Edward the Confessor: England’s holy hardman

ever before,” says Margaret MacMillan. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

“We’ve come to think that peace is normal, but that’s not the reality”: Margaret MacMillan on humanity’s compulsion to go to war

Sculpture dedicated to king Leonidas of the Spartans in Thermopylae, Greece.

Sparta

In 802 Charlemagne took delivery of an elephant, sent to him by Harun al-Rashid, the caliph in Baghdad. Here, a manuscript illumination from a late 12th century English Latin bestiary. (Image by Alamy)

8 turning points in medieval European history

The storming of Beziers

Medieval turning points