Early comic panel illustration

England

19th-century mugshots

The real Peaky Blinders

Aerial view of Dover Castle

ExploreExplore Dover Castle: Britain’s first line of defence. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Cavalry charge into a crowd of protesters at St Peter's Field, Manchester, as depicted in an 1819 engraving. What followed was the worst violence ever to occur at a political meeting in Britain. (Picture by Alamy)

The Peterloo Massacre: what did it achieve?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh

Q&ADid Sir Walter Ralegh really lay down his cloak for Elizabeth I?

Q&A'God Save The Queen': how old is the British national anthem?

Winchester Cathedral

From King Alfred to Jane Austen: a historical tour of Winchester. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Prime ministers Robert Walpole and Boris Johnson

From Walpole to Boris: a brief history of Eton College and the 20 prime ministers it has produced

The HMS Victory in Portsmouth

A visit to HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Literary women through the ages: Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Brontë all enjoyed female friendships which enriched their writing, say Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. (Getty Images)

From Austen & Brontë to Woolf: literature’s forgotten female friendships

A depiction of the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh (10 September 1547), the last formal battle between England and Scotland. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Q&AWhen was the last battle between England and Scotland?

Henry VIII's Mary Rose (© 19th era/Alamy)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose

A cartoon showing a man in a suit of armour on the moon

Q&ADid NASA really pick the brains of the Tower of London armoury when designing the first space suits?

Illustration by Glen McBeth.

Q&AWhen did the leopards on the royal arms of England become the lions depicted today?

Britain’s 7 most amazing stately homes

Clash between the English Temeraire and the French Redoutable ships during the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

The battle of Trafalgar. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dornier 217 bombers of the Luftwaffe bomb London during the Battle of Britain. "The crucial role of the RAF in denying the Germans control of the air in 1940 and therefore persuading Hitler to abandon his invasion plans is so well known that it might seem almost sacrilegious to question it, " says Sean Lang. "But was it solely responsible for saving Britain from invasion? Not quite." (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

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

History ExplorerThe Holy Island of Lindisfarne

Ruth Ellis and her friend Desmond Cussen, who supplied the gun with which she shot David Blakely. (Photo by Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

Ruth Ellis and the hanging that rocked a nation

The ruins of Dunluce Castle, which sit on the coastal cliffs of North Antrim in Northern Ireland. They are thought to have been the inspiration for CS Lewis’s castle Cair Paravel in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ (1950–56). (Photo by Andrea Ricordi/Contributor/Getty Images)

9 of Britain’s best castles. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A closer look at the Staffordshire Hoard. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Wrens worked as code-breakers at Bletchley Park.

Second World War

Female codebreakers: the women of Bletchley Park

Victorian freak shows. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The women of Bletchley Park. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Lord's pavilion

Lord's cricket ground: the mecca of the sport. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A Tudor rose on a wooden ceiling beam.

Monarchy and faith in Tudor England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Image of the Lindisfarne Stone from Holy Island, Northumbria. It shows seven warriors, possibly vikings. The Vikings’ first recorded raid on Lindisfarne took place in AD 793. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Your guide to the Viking raid of Lindisfarne in AD 793

Live Aid stage at Wembley, London, in 1985

When Live Aid rocked the world

Between 1613 and 1754, a legal loophole meant that on-the-spot marriages could be carried out in an area surrounding the Fleet Debtors’ Prison known as the ‘Liberties of the Fleet’. (Photo by Getty Images)

General History

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the history of London

Rachel Reeves on women who changed politics. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Peasants in the Middle Ages at a cattle market. Cows appear to have been difficult to manage in the medieval period, and caused several deaths. (Photo by INTERFOTO /Alamy)

5 strange causes of death in the medieval period