A Red Cross worker in the United States, 1918

Q&A

How did Spanish Flu get its name? When did our ancestors start using toilet paper? Why did the famous Crystal Palace burn down? And where was the WW1 Armistice signed? Here, your most burning questions about history are answered by historians and experts…

Language of flowers postcard

Q&AWhat was floriography?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

18th century French caricature satirising the fashion for enormous wigs

Q&ADid Rococo wigs really have mice?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A picture of Charles Darwin in his later years

Q&ADid Charles Darwin coin the phrase 'survival of the fittest'?

Henry Morgan on ship's deck in battle taking a hostage

Q&ADid pirates really live on the island of Tortuga?

The capture of the pirate Blackbeard, 1718. Painting by JLG Ferris. One of history’s most notorious pirates, Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach almost certainly had a West Country twang because he was born in Bristol in around 1680. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

Q&ADid most English pirates really talk with a West Country accent?

The Jolly Roger, a black flag showing a skuyll and crossbones. (Photo by Henry Guttmann Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Q&ADid all pirates fly the Jolly Roger?

A pirate uses his cutlass to force a bound and blindfolded man to walk the plank

Q&AWas walking the plank a real pirate punishment?

Pirates burying a treasure chest on a beach as their captain looks on

Q&AX marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure?

Photo of tall ship

Q&AWho do we say 'shot across the bows'?

When were punctuation marks first used? Illustration by Glen McBeth for BBC History Magazine.

General History

Q&AWhen were punctuation marks first used?

Neville Chamberlain shows off the Anglo-German Declaration at Heston Aerodrome

Second World War

Q&APeace for our time: what was written on Neville Chamberlain's piece of paper?

A model of the so-called ‘Piltdown Man’ and a replica of its skull,

Q&AWho was the Piltdown Man?

An 18th-century painting depicts Alexander the Great preparing to hack through the Gordian Knot with his sword

General ancient history

Q&AWhat was the Gordian Knot?

Sketch of Pytheas of Massalia standing on the deck of a wooden ship. He was a Greek explorer who claimed to have visited the British Isles

Q&ADid any ancient Greeks visit Britain?

Sketch of Lord Richard Rich

Q&ADoes Richard Rich deserve his bad reputation?

Q&AWhy do some people call the Irish famine ‘the Great Hunger’?

A statue in Kiev showing a Ukrainian player defeating a Third Reich eagle symbol at the Start stadium's entrance

Q&ADid Nazis guards really play a 'death match' against a Ukrainian football team?

Wehrmacht soldiers on parade, 1937

Q&AHow was Germany able to afford the astronomical cost of rearmament in the 1930s?

Shoppers in Liverpool during the 1960s

Q&AWhy is the shopping day after Thanksgiving called ‘Black Friday’?

Q&AWhat and when is the National Day of Mourning in the United States?

Q&AWhat is gaol fever and how was it caused and spread?

A modern fireworks display

General ancient history

Q&AHow were fireworks made in ancient China?

Q&AWas the gunfight at the OK Corral a major gun battle?

How did pasta come to Europe and when did it first become established in Italy?

Q&AWhat was clog fighting?

Q&ACould Roman slaves buy their own freedom?

The fabled ‘Vegetable Lamb of Tartary’ was a plant said to grow sheep as its fruit.

Q&AWhat was the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary?

The Bal des Ardents (the 'Ball of the Burning Men'), from 'The Chronicler of European Chivalry' by GG Coulton (London, 1930). The 1393 tragedy claimed the lives of four people. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Q&AWhat was the ‘Ball of the Burning Men’?

Tony Robinson as Private Baldrick and Rowan Atkinson as Captain Blackadder

Q&AWas there a real Blackadder?

The burgundy cover of a British passport

Q&AWhen were passports as we know them today first introduced?