Women's history

It was the need for witnesses in divorce courts – ones who wouldn’t mind their names being linked to scandals, no less – that partly gave rise to female detectives. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

Women detectives: meet the Victorian female super sleuths

Mary Toft, perpetrator of the 1726 hoax – in which she appeared to give birth to rabbits

The woman who gave birth to rabbits? How Mary Toft’s hoax captured Georgian society

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace: a visionary of computing

Illustration of Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir

The amazing life of a great female Viking explorer

The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies (Public Domain)

The real Harlots: Hallie Rubenhold on Covent Garden’s courtesans

Historian Janina Ramirez

Exclusive podcast Janina Ramirez on extraordinary medieval women

Half-sisters and daughters of Henry VIII: Mary Tudor (left) and Elizabeth I, who both reigned as queen of England. (Photos by Getty Images)

Did Elizabeth I and her half-sister, Mary Tudor, have a good relationship? Historian Tracy Borman explains

A portrait of Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland.

Your guide to Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs

A portrait of Elizabeth I, c1565

The 10 best English queens in history

10 facts about Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë

Portrait of the Bronte sisters

The Brontës: the unfortunate and unlikely tale of the world’s “greatest literary sisters”

Carved wall scene depicting Cleopatra at Dendera Temple

Cleopatra: what is the real legacy of the last pharaoh?

Portrait of Catherine Howard

11 facts about Catherine Howard

A decorative portrait of Elizabeth Woodville

5 quick-fire questions about medieval queens – answered

Harriet Tubman (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad: how one woman saved hundreds from hell