Social history

Illustration of the Children's Crusade of 1212, from the Story of the British Nation, Volume 1, by Walter Hutchinson, c1920 (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

What was the Children’s Crusade, and did it actually happen?

The 16th-century painting, Triumph of Death, by Jan Brueghel the Elder depicts an army of skeletons ravaging the Earth (Photo by akg-images)

General History

6 moments when diseases drastically altered human history

The temple of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá

General ancient history

Your guide to ancient Maya: from the writing system to the truth about ‘human sacrifice’

Guitarist David Crosby of the Byrds performs with his band in front of a large crowd at the Magic Mountain Music Festival on Mount Tamalpais, June 1967. (Image by © Henry Diltz/Corbis)

General History

From Ancient Greece to Glastonbury: a brief history of music festivals

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Penal transportation to Australia: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Joseph Chamberlain (far right) pictured with his sons Neville (far left) and Austen, daughter Hilda (front left) and third wife, Mary Endicott (Photo by Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Industrial revolution

Chamberlain and Cadbury of Birmingham The first families in Britain’s second city

Men kiss in a medieval illumination.

Are some LGBTQ histories being overlooked?

William Caxton shows off his new press in Westminster to Edward IV in a 19th-century painting (Photo by Artepics / Alamy Stock Photo)

How William Caxton printed the first-ever book in English

A 1380s depiction of the Knights of the Round Table. Their heroics were routinely celebrated at medieval feasts (Photo by Heritage Images / Contributor / Getty Images)

6 ingredients for a memorable medieval feast

A uniformed US soldier plants American flags at gravesites on Memorial Day

Memorial Day A brief history

London in the 16th century map, illustration by Theresa Grieben

Trade, religion and diversity: how Tudor London became a global city

Bishops tumble, with “popish” paraphernalia falling from their pockets, in a woodcut from a 1641 Puritan pamphlet titled 'A Decade of Grievances' (Photo by Bridgeman Images)

How people power fuelled England’s century of chaos

A woodcut from Frances Rose-Troup’s book about the Prayer Book Rebellion, in which some 4,000 people from Devon and Cornwall died (Photo by Collection PJ / Alamy Stock Photo)

The Prayer Book Rebellion: Mark Stoyle on how the 1549 rising almost changed Tudor history

A clown, c1970s. The next decade, there would be a panic over

General History

Clowns, agoraphobia and kayaks: a history of fear and loathing

'The Reward of Cruelty', 1751, by William Hogarth (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

“An enlightened turn”: how medicine (and the vaccination) developed in 18th-century Britain