Feature

Policemen from Scotland Yard patrolling at night

Real-life Sherlocks: the detectives of Scotland Yard and their curious cases

Thomas Blood stealing the Crown Jewels

The day Thomas Blood stole the Crown Jewels

An illustration of the barons compelling King John to ratify Magna Carta, 1215. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

6 facts about Magna Carta

Pope Francis celebrates a priesthood ordination and mass in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. (Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP via Getty Images)

General History

Sex and the (Vatican) City: a brief history of clerical celibacy

The state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill

The death of Sir Winston Churchill and the top-secret plans for his funeral

An engraving depicts a frost fair on the Thames

Frozen: Britain’s Little Ice Age

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector

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

Sir Nicholas Winton

Second World War

The ‘British Schindler’ who saved 669 children from the Nazis

American president Warren G Harding and his wife, First Lady Florence Harding.

Tension in the Middle East and populist presidents: what the world was like 100 years ago

Catherine de Valois is seen here marrying Henry V, who was 14 years her senior, as part of the 1420 Treaty of Troyes. Following Henry's death she wed Welshman Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur, who is variously referred to as the queen’s steward, page or cupbearer. (Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy)

Scandalous Tudor marriages: 7 women who braved royal wrath by marrying for love

German prisoners of war

What would you have done? 6 terrible choices people had to make during the Second World War

New York City police watching agents pour liquor into a sewer

Wet vs Dry: how prohibition fractured America

Edward VI

To kidnap a king: the foiled plot to abduct Edward VI

Illustation of a pope

Holy smoke, antipopes and power struggles: a guide to popes and the papacy

A still from Sam Mendes film '1917'

First World War

“A staggering tour de force – but an opportunity missed”: a historian’s review of the film 1917