Africa

Ramesses II holding prisoners

Was Ramesses II really that great?

Great Pyramid of Giza

5 facts about the Great Pyramid of Giza

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Emma Dabiri. (Photo by Fran Monks)

Why black hair matters . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dornier 217 bombers of the Luftwaffe bomb London during the Battle of Britain.

9 of the most overrated battles in history (and one underrated one)

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St Catharine's College, Cambridge has already removed a bell from view after concluding it came from a slave plantation. (Image by Alamy)

Anna Whitelock Confronting slavery’s legacy . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

(Image by Bettmann/Getty)

10 photographs that made history

Men enjoying a drink and a chat in a coffee house, 1674. Coffee houses became known as ‘schools of the wise’, where people would gossip, argue and discuss the breaking news of the day. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A drink for the devil: 8 facts about the history of coffee

Great Pyramid of Giza. Egypt. (Photo by Olgakostenko | Dreamstime.com)

10 of the most surprising numbers in history

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The beautiful courtyard of the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and university, founded in the 850's (Izzet Keribar/Getty Images)

Explore Fès, Morocco: Morocco’s spiritual capital . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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British Indian soldiers stand at attention prior to inspection at Singapore, December 1941. (Photo by Alamy)

World War Two’s ‘ordinary’ soldiers . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Julian Baggini and Justin Champion. (Photo by Fran Monks)

A global history of philosophy . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Dramatic view of the sun setting over a megalithic tomb and stone circle. (Dreamstime)

Egypt’s lost tombs . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The First World War promoted advances in medicine, and in sectors such as aviation, that had not just military but also peacetime benefits, says David Stevenson. Here Captain Francis Derwent Wood treats the face of a patient, creating a mask which matches as closely as possible to the man's faces before he was injured, c1916. (Photo by Horace Nicholls/ IWM via Getty Images)

The First World War: what was it good for?

Rags and riches: Enslaved people wash diamonds in Brazil, guarded by armed overseers, in a German engraving of 1828. Diamonds were discovered in Minas Gerais state in the late 17th century. (Picture by Alamy)

Brazil: a society shaped by slavery

Men sealing cases of Rowntree’s Elect Cocoa, York, Yorkshire, 1893. (Photo by Borthwick Institute/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Chocolate and empire: from the land where the cocoa grows