Military history

Neil Faulkner reveals how the Anglo-Arab Wars of 1870-1920 helped give rise to the first modern jihad

Jihad and the British empire

A trieme is rowed towards a naval battle in a scene depicting the battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC

The ancient Greeks at war: hoplites, the phalanx and the greatest battles

An illustration of ancient Greek thinker Archimedes

How Archimedes took on the Romans

Vanguard-class submarine HMS Vigilant, the top above water

Britain’s nuclear deterrent: a brief history

A Hawker Hurricane of Fighter Command on its way to intercept German bombers as they crossed the south coast of England during the Battle of Britain, 1940. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Second World War

6 Battle of Britain myths

Two Hitler Youth who have surrendered to Allied Forces, Germany, 1945. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

First World War

Innocence under fire: how children were used in warfare of the past

Allied convoy PQ 17 is attacked by a German torpedo aircraft on its way across the Arctic Ocean, c1942. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

“The worst journey in the world”: the Arctic convoys of the Second World War

US secretary of state William Seward (seated left) signs the agreement to buy Alaska from Russia in 1867

America’s hidden empire: the USA’s forgotten imperial expansion

Soldiers disembark a landing craft with a battle on the beach beyond

How to win a 20th-century battle

Partnered content Gaijin War Thunder

German troops on horseback cross a bridge during the Poland campaign

Second World War

The brutal blitzkrieg: the 1939 invasion of Poland

John F Kennedy with US Army officials during the Cuban missile crisis

“We are eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked”: how the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated

Portrait of English admiral Lord Horatio Nelson

Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson: a rebel with a cause

Nikita Khrushchev visits President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1964

Snuffed out democracies and poisoned toothpaste: how the Cold War wreaked havoc in post-colonial Africa

A plaque which decorated the palace of the Benin Obas, The Obas butchers sacrificing a cow, the most prestigious animal sacrifice

Benin: a kingdom cast in bronze, brought to ruin by Britain

The Byzantines and a flamethrower

General ancient history

Q&A What was Greek fire?