Early comic panel illustration

England

Portrait of First World War nurse Edith Cavell with one of her dogs

First World War

Edith Cavell: how the executed British First World War nurse became a symbol of peace

A woodcut showing the interior of a kitchen in Elizabethan England. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Hold your noses: the smells, sounds and sights of Elizabethan England

A portrait of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York

Like father, like son: Richard Plantagenet and Richard III

A statue of Oliver Cromwell stares downwards, against a red background

The dark truth about Oliver Cromwell

John of Gaunt: prince without a throne

John of Gaunt shown in a c16th-century portrait

John of Gaunt: The man who would be king

Tostig Godwinson, brother of King Harold II of England, and King Harald Hardrada of Norway receive the submission of the city of York

Hastings, Stamford Bridge and Gate Fulford: three battles that lost England

The Green Knight shows his severed – and still talking – head to King Arthur in this illustration of the beginning of the 14th century legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: what’s the story?

An illustration of Henry VII, surrounded by Tudor roses. In the background there are shadows of those who challenged for his throne.

Henry VII: the greatest pretender

A Hawker Hurricane of Fighter Command on its way to intercept German bombers as they crossed the south coast of England during the Battle of Britain, 1940. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

6 Battle of Britain myths

A Peep at St. Peter or The Poet in a Pickle

Q&AWhy do we say 'Peeping Tom'?

An Anglo-Saxon cross from the church of St Michael

Anglo-Saxon conversion: the coming of the cross (at the point of a sword)

A portrait of Princess Elizabeth

The birth of Elizabeth I: everything you need to know

Soldiers disembark a landing craft with a battle on the beach beyond

How to win a 20th-century battle

In partnership with Gaijin War Thunder

Workers lower the bodywork of a Standard Vanguard car onto its chassis in a factory

Britain’s motor city: how Coventry's car industry roared to greatness – then went into reverse

The rise of the Paralympics

A photograph of the England team that faced Australia at the Oval in the 1896 Ashes series

Batting for the British Empire: how Victorian cricket was more than just a game

Joep de Beer of Holland throws a javelin at the Stoke Mandeville Games

Q&AWhen and where were the first Paralympics held?

British police history: everything you wanted to know

Working-class girlhood in 1930s Bolton

The history hidden in British heritage sites

Thomas Crapper started a plumbing business in Chelsea in 1861 and pioneered some of the most revolutionary designs of sanitary engineering in the 19th century – but he didn't 'invent' the toilet

The legend of Thomas Crapper, the man who didn't invent the toilet

Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I

Henrietta Maria: Charles I’s warrior queen

Early Medieval Britain: everything you wanted to know

The Scandalous BoleynsWhy Do They Continue To Fascinate Us?

Anne of Denmark, wife of James I of England

Anne of Denmark: a killer queen?

Mary, Queen of Scots during her trial at Fotheringhay Castle – where she was also executed for her alleged role in the Babington Plot (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

What if...The Babington Plot to assassinate Elizabeth I had succeeded?

History heroSteven Berkoff chooses Laurence Olivier (1907–89)

Wartime Britain’s mixed-race babies

Women munition workers stacking a reserve of shell castings during WWI

Young guns: the women and children of WW1 munitions factories