Illustration of strange creatures

Weird and wonderful history

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector

Royalists, beards and cowardice: are these the strangest taxes in history?.

Edvard Munch's painting 'Love and Pain'

The Vampyre stirs: 200 years of vampire entertainment.

A poster for Terence Fisher's 1958 horror 'Dracula'

From Dracula to The Historian: 5 gothic novels that reflected the anxieties of their age.

The filthy Middle Ages?.

Rotten boroughs cartoon

9 general election curiosities through history.

Tourists at Stonehenge

Stonehenge: a prehistoric tourist trap.

Simon the cat

10 top cats in history

Being invited to become a 'guest' of the Tower of London in medieval England meant, more often than not, that you would soon be food for the crows. (Image by Getty Images/RM Creative)

10 historical haunted sites across Britain.

5 Georgian ghost hoaxes.

This 1867 magazine illustration shows a group of children preparing for Halloween. (Photo by American Stock/Getty Images)

The origins of Halloween: tricks, treats and cobbled streets.

Cariad Lloyd, Suzannah Lipscomb and Greg Jenner

"A history podcast for people who don't like history": Greg Jenner on his new podcast You’re Dead To Me.

Q&AHow did Area 51 become associated with aliens?.

A photo which was believed to be of the Loch Ness Monster

The quest for the Loch Ness Monster.

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.

Medieval trepanning

General prehistory

Q&AWhat is trepanning?

The Ashes urn, a cricketing trophy

In pictures: The Ashes through history

For our forebears, the secret to a good night's sleep lay in the contents of your gut. (Photo by Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

6 sleeping tips and tricks from history.

The ‘Surgeon’s Photo’, taken in 1934, which claimed to depict the Loch Ness Monster. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

5 facts about the Loch Ness Monster

A 15th-century map of the world illustrating a Latin edition of Ptolemy's the 'Geography'. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

12 alternative giant leaps for mankind – from carnivorism to Magna Carta.

A cartoon showing a man in a suit of armour on the moon

Q&ADid NASA really pick the brains of the Tower of London armoury when designing the first space suits?.

Illustration by Glen McBeth.

Q&AWhen did the leopards on the royal arms of England become the lions depicted today?

Revealed: the history of America’s national anthem

Victorian freak shows.

'Peter Pan and Wendy' by James Matthew Barrie.

8 of the best dogs in history

9 eccentric monarchs through history.

The story of Madame Tussaud.

Between 1613 and 1754, a legal loophole meant that on-the-spot marriages could be carried out in an area surrounding the Fleet Debtors’ Prison known as the ‘Liberties of the Fleet’. (Photo by Getty Images)

General History

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the history of London

Sergeant Stubby, an American dog who served as the mascot of America's 102nd Infantry Regiment during the First World War. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

First World War

Sergeant Stubby of the First World War: the heroic story of America’s most decorated war dog

Men enjoying a drink and a chat in a coffee house, 1674. Coffee houses became known as ‘schools of the wise’, where people would gossip, argue and discuss the breaking news of the day. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A drink for the devil: 8 facts about the history of coffee

Peasants in the Middle Ages at a cattle market. Cows appear to have been difficult to manage in the medieval period, and caused several deaths. (Photo by INTERFOTO /Alamy)

5 strange causes of death in the medieval period.