Weird and wonderful

Spies through the ages podcast

General ancient history

Spies through the ages

A 19th-century cricket match at the Kennington Oval. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

10 things you didn’t know about London’s sporting history

A reconstruction of a Theban painting from the Ancient Egyptian Dynasty XIX depicting a childbirth scene. The mother is seen being helped by her handmaidens and a midwife. Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

7 surprising facts about the history of medicine

A man sneezes into a handkerchief, c1936. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

6 facts about the history of hay fever

Gussie Moran shocked onlookers with her lace knickers on show at the 1949 Wimbledon Championships (George W. Hales/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

10 scandalous moments in Wimbledon’s history

The bikini was showcased to the world for the first time in July 1946. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

8 weird things that happened in July through history

A woodcut print depicting the stocks, a form of Elizabethan punishment. Dated 16th century. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

“Damn your blood”: Swearing in early modern English

Michael Fish makes his first televised weather forecast in 1974. (Photo by Press Association)

4 facts about the history of the weather forecast

Chastity belt decorated with a flower design and a heart pierced with arrows. (SSPL/Getty Images)

13 weird historical facts

Illustration by Owen Davey

A brief history of human filth

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, observed by Queen Catherine (of Aragon), who is stood in the doorway. Anne has been playing the lute for the king, watched by a gathering of courtiers. Cardinal Wolsey, right of centre, looks on. Painting by Marcus Stone, 1870. Private collection. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The men who changed Henry VIII’s underpants

Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico's left-wing president who in 1940 legalised drugs. (Photo by Henry Guttmann/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The year Mexico legalised drugs

French cuirassiers charging a British infantry square at the Battle of Waterloo, 1815 (1906). From Cassell's Illustrated History of England, Vol. V. (Cassell and Company, Limited, London, Paris, New York & Melbourne, 1906). Artist P Jazet.(Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

How the French won Waterloo (or think they did)

King Ludwig II of Bavaria. (Photo by Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

9 eccentric monarchs through history