Weird and wonderful

Tourists at Stonehenge

General prehistory

Stonehenge: a prehistoric tourist trap

Portrait of theologian and Bible translator John Wycliffe (c1330–84). (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

The murderous history of Bible translations

The pirate Blackbeard

10 brilliant beards from history

Attempted assassination of Queen Victoria (1819-1901). On the evening of Wednesday 10 June 1840 Victoria and Prince Albert were travelling in a carriage along Constitution Hill near Buckingham Palace, London, when Edward Oxford fired a pistol at the Queen

The man who tried to assassinate Queen Victoria

The runners at the two mile mark at the back of Greenwich Park.

A brief history of marathons

St George’s Day: 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about England’s patron saint

c1943: Soldiers enjoy a baseball match at Wembley Stadium in London between the United States Army and Canadian Forces. With them sits Bobby, the mascot of the Canadian Highland Scottish regiment. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Animals at war: 12 amazing pictures

Gerald Heard had a peculiar idea that the UFOs then being sighted all across the globe, as such as this ‘sighting’ in Sicily, were piloted not by humanoid ETs, as you may have presumed, but by alien super-bees from Mars. (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)

6 of history’s strangest ever theories about outer space

Picture of a court jester

10 April Fools pranks through history that went wrong

A French print by the Thierry bothers depicting the appearance of the landscape and inhabitants of the Moon

How to carry off a great hoax

Perkin Warbeck, an imposter and pretender to the English throne, being humiliated in the stocks before his execution in 1499. Warbeck was used by Henry VII’s Yorkist enemies in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. (Getty Images)

Imposters in history: 16 famous con-artists and pretenders

An ancient Roman relief shows a midwife delivering a baby. Many midwives had other occupations, and undertook the task as a contribution to their community. (Wellcome Images)

Call the (Roman) midwife

Mary, Queen of Scots (reigned 1542–67) was “absolutely useless as queen of Scotland”, says historian Sean Lang. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

9 of the worst monarchs in history

The Calcutta Cup, a rugby union trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Six Nations Championship match between England and Scotland.

Scotland v England: the world’s first international rugby match

Woodcut of a woman who may be stoking a furnace or baking bread, printed in the 15th century. (SSPL/Getty Images)

What was life like for a medieval housewife?