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Dickens on the move

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

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

A big day in history: Florence's bonfire of the vanities

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

An 18th century village in Germany. Strict laws regulated the goods that each social class could buy. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Beware what you buy: the goods German citizens were forbidden to consume

BBC History Magazine

Murder most horrid

The Golden Coast

The LibraryYe Olde Travel Guide: Mainz 1455. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge. (David Levenson/Getty Images)

My history hero: Sir Moses I Finley (1912–86). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Siege of Antioch during the First Crusade, c1200. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Why Islam crushed the crusaders

A statue of Joan of Arc in the home where she is thought to have been born, in Domrémy-La-Pucelle, eastern France. (PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP/Getty Images)

Where history happenedJoan of Arc. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from an early 15th-century manuscript of the poem ‘De Regimine Principum’ by Thomas Hoccleve. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The LibraryChaucer and the idea of Englishness

An illustration from ‘A Short History of the English People’ by John Richard Green. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Drowning in Tudor England: why was water so dangerous?

View towards Steel Rigg from Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria. (Photo by VisitBritain/Rod Edwards via Getty Images)

History explorer: Early Roman Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A stone relief depicting men bringing gifts to the king, c500 BC. (Getty Images)

The Persian empire: myth vs reality

A portrait of Henry VII in 1505. His claim to the throne was tenuous and he had to see off a posse of pretenders, yet he proved a canny and competent ruler, modernising the justice system and filling the crown’s coffers. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Henry VII: the survivor and stabiliser

BBC History Magazine

Is public spending elbowing out private endeavour?

A poster depicting a First World War soldier musing over having caught a venereal disease while on furlough.(Photo by David Pollack/Corbis via Getty Images)

Sex and the First World War: the Tommies who visited brothels

A Saracen attack on Crusaders, from the French manuscript 'Chroniques de Saint Denis', c1200. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Traders and crusaders

BBC History Magazine

Politicians should resist the urge to invoke the wartime spirit

Prehistoric village people: exploring the Orkney Islands

The surprisingly long history of humanity's political development

Ye Olde Travel Guide: Samarkand 1404. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A woodcut showing Prince Rupert of the Rhine's pet poodle Boy being killed at the battle of Marston Moor

The prince and the devil dog: the strange story of Prince Rupert's poodle 'Boy'

My history hero: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The A to Z of royal weddings with Tracy Borman

A woodcut showing the Globe Theatre, one of London's most famous landmarks and the venue most closely associated with Shakespeare's plays. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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

5 of the worst smells in medieval London