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Helen Duncan, a 20th-century medium and spiritualist, allegedly summoned spirits draped in ‘ectoplasm’ – organic matter emitted from her body. In the 1930s she was denounced as a fraud, and in 1944 prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcra Act, which forbade conjuring spirits. (Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum/University of London)

Conjuring up the dead: Helen Duncan and her ectoplasm spirits

The remarkable Codex Amiatinus, a

Watch: Highlights from the British Library’s new Anglo-Saxon exhibition

JFK prepares to sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. (Picture by Corbis/Getty Images)

Nuclear nightmare: the Cuban missile crisis

Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, c1507-1536. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Guilty or not guilty: why did Anne Boleyn have to die?

Pit Brow Lasses from an unknown colliery in Wigan, Lancashire, c1887. (Photograph by Herbert Wragg. Courtesy of the Trustees of the National Coal Mining Museum for England)

The ‘Pit Brow Lasses’ of 19th-century coal mines

The remarkable Codex Amiatinus, a

“An absolute gem”: Anglo-Saxons at the British Library

The miller Samuel Wood, whose arm and scapula were torn off when entangled in a rope attached to a moving mill machinery in 1737. (Photo by Alamy)

7 bizarre cases in the history of medicine

A portrait of Henry VIII with Prince Edward, his son by his third wife, Jane Seymour. If the future Henry IX had survived, there may have been no cause for Henry to annul his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn in 1533, says Amy Licence. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

6 royal births that changed the world (or could have)

The Ghent Altarpiece. (Image by Getty Images)

Who were the real monuments men of the Second World War?

William the Conqueror and his escorts on horseback, detail from the Bayeux Tapestry. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Did William the Conqueror ever go to Hastings?

A wedding portrait of the Duke and Duchess of York with their parents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, and Queen Mary and King George V of England. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

8 unconventional royal wedding dresses in history

A vintage colour lithograph depicting King Richard III at the battle of Bosworth. The battle of Bosworth (or Bosworth Field) was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York. (Photo by Getty Images)

The battle for Bosworth field: Historians react to decision to build on battlefield where Richard III died

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A 19th-century depiction of HMS Erebus in the ice, by François Etienne Musin. What exactly happened to the ship and its crew remains a mystery. (Picture by Alamy)

Michael Palin on HMS Erebus and the doomed Franklin Expedition of 1845 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In c1500, the young Thomas Cromwell travelled from his humble Putney home to the great cities of Italy, as shown in our illustration. The connections he established on the Italian peninsula would prove key to his meteoric rise to power back in England. (Illustration by Sarah Young for BBC History Magazine)

Thomas Cromwell: the best Italian in all England

Otto von Wächter, who went on the run after the Second World War.

Otto von Wächter: On the trail of the Nazi who disappeared