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A cartoon depiction of mythical Luddite leader Ned Ludd. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Where history happened: Luddites. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A contemporary view of the river Seine and Notre-Dame de Paris. (Getty Images)

Ye Olde Travel Guide: Paris 1802. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Landscape gardener, architect and writer John Loudon. "I just wish I had a fraction of his vision," says Mark Easton of one of the first people to champion green space in Britain's cities. (Public Domain)

My history hero: John Loudon (1783–1843). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Two medieval men thresh a sheaf of wheat in this 14th century illustration. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Michael Wood on the history of you and me. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jerusalem's magnificent Dome of the Rock was deliberately designed to put a Muslim stamp on what had previously been a Christian city. (Getty Images)

The midwife of Islam. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An American privateer is shown repelling a British attack during the War of 1812. Despite some notable successes, the British regarded the entire conflict as a sideshow and quickly forgot it. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

When Washington burned. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Laurence Olivier plays Richard III in the 1955 film adaptation of Shakespeare's play. In it, the controversial monarch is damned as everything from a "bottled spider" and "lump of foul deformity" to a "poisonous bunch-backed toad". (Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Why did Shakespeare revile Richard III?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A cast of a Roman warship carrying armed soldiers. (Photo By DEA / G. NIMATALLAH/De Agostini/Getty Images)

The Roman invasion: whose side were the Britons on?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

(Illustration by Jonty Clark for BBC History Magazine)

Ye olde travel guide: Hedeby AD 950. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Queen's silver jubilee took place in 1977. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

Why the Seventies still matter

Sue Townsend admires Charles Dickens (pictured c1960) for his battles against social injustice. (Photo by London Stereoscopic Company/Getty Images)

My history hero: Charles Dickens (1812-1870). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The RMS Titanic. (Image by Perspectives/Getty Images)

Where history happened: The Titanic disaster. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The death of Aelfeah at the hands of the Danes, portrayed in a window of St Luke's church, Bath. (Photo by: MyLoupe/UIG via Getty Images)

St Ælfheah: Canterbury’s other martyr. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A view towards the Carew estuary between a dry stone wall and the ruins of Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire, UK. (Dreamstime)

Where history happened: Tudor courtiers with Suzannah Lipscomb. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Painting depicting medieval nuns. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

17th-century nuns on the run. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mikado Maids

A big day in history: Gilbert and Sullivan unveil 'The Mikado'. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Britain’s medieval identity crisis. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Vintage map of the Bahamas. (Library of Congress)

Ye Olde Travel Guide: Bahamas 1718. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

'Tirpitz' hiding in a Norwegian fjord in 1942. “She outclassed anything in the British fleet,” says Patrick Bishop. (Getty Images)

The Second World War: sinking the Tirpitz. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A painting depicting the Duke of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo. "Wellington’s victories at Roliça and Vimeiro in 1808 were the first significant defeats inflicted upon the French emperor’s armies in Europe," says Saul David. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The triumph of the redcoats. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Ernest Bevin

My history hero: Ernest Bevin (1881-1951). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Chris Patten, the last governor of colonial Hong Kong, is pictured here receiving the Union Jack flag shortly before Hong Kong was returned to China, ending over a century of British rule. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

The British empire: 10 big questions. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A photograph of Queen Victoria and her descendants, taken in April 1894 in Coburg, Germany. The photograph shows Queen Victoria's position at the centre of a network of alliances created by strategic marriages, which gave her the name 'the grandmother of Europe'. (Alamy)

A photograph of Queen Victoria and her family: what can it tell us?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the 16,000 years after the end of the last Ice Age, societies in Eurasia and the Americas followed radically different trajectories. Here, an Aztec priest offers the heart taken from a living person to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli. (Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

The old world and the new. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dickens on the move. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Line engraving depicting the burning of Rawlins White, c1555. From a late 18th-century edition of John Foxe's 'The Book of Martyrs'. (Alamy)

The Making of Martyrs. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in the centre of Florence (Getty)

A big day in history: Florence's bonfire of the vanities. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Ye Olde Travel Guide: Corfu 1864. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Frederick Courteney Selous (1851-1917). (Alamy)

My history hero: Frederick Courteney Selous (1851-1917). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English medical student Roger Bannister

A history of British sport. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.