Illustration of strange creatures

Weird and wonderful history

An illustration of the novel ‘The War of the Worlds’ by HG Wells, made by Henri Lanos, 1905. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

In thrall to the red planet: 5 facts about our view of Mars through history.

The weird and wonderful world of Victorian entertainment.

Full-length portrait of (left) American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–91) and entertainer Commodore Nutt (1814–81), c1862. (Photo by HultonGetty/GettyImages)

Circus sensation: PT Barnum's greatest wheezes.

Charles Darwin sports his trademark bushy beard in 1877. (Photo by Corbis Historical/Getty Images)

From Charles Darwin’s beard to George Eliot’s right hand: 4 famous Victorian bodily quirks.

James Sadler: From pastry cook to first English aeronaut.

6 strange newspaper stories that shocked Victorian Britain.

Festive QI facts: 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about the history of Christmas

Corner shops and Russian ballet.

First World War

What is the origin of the phrase 'to blow smoke up someone's arse'?

BBC History Magazine

Who was the first ever teenage heartthrob?

Accidental explosions: gunpowder in Tudor and Stuart London.

Medieval Albigensians: Bath’s reincarnated heretics.

Holocaust landscapes.

What are the historical origins of darts?

History on film: London is smothered by a dangerous smog

BBC History Magazine

Horrible Histories Live on Stage: an interview with creator Neal Foster

Forgotten science: 7 of the strangest scientific theories in history.

Full-Length Portrait of King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger

Q&AHow big was Henry VIII’s codpiece?

The history of the suntan

Mompesson House, which has sinister connections with a ghost known as the Demon Drummer. (Clare Hargreaves/The National Trust)

9 haunted historic houses

7 unusual historical sites in Britain and Ireland

History’s most fascinating muses.

Behind the scenes of Suzannah Lipscomb’s 'Hidden Killers of the Post-War Home'

The battle of Jutland and 1950s domestic dangers.

A combo picture of two images taken 13 August 2002 at Cairo Museum shows a foot of a mummy missing its big toe and beside it a prosthetic toe of leather and wood to replace the amputated real one. (Photo by Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images)

Q&AHow long have people used prosthetic limbs?.

Mary, Queen of Scots is executed © Getty

Horrible Histories author reveals 10 ways to die in Elizabethan England.

German astronomer Johannes Kepler c1620. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

The astronomer and the witch: Johannes Kepler’s fight to save his mother from execution

Monopoly maps: the history of MI9’s secret Second World War escape programme.

Roman garden at the House of the Golden Cupids, Pompeii. (Linda Farrar)

A guide to ancient gardening.

A giant leap for mankind: William Harvey reveals the circulation of the blood