France

The battle of Dover, 24 August 1217, (image c1880). (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Eustace the Monk: one of medieval Europe’s unholiest holy men

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Police and railwaymen assist some of the 800 evacuee children as they leave Ealing Broadway station, London, for the country on 1st September 1939 (Photo by Getty Images)

Britain goes to war . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Isabella of France welcomed by her brother Charles IV to Paris. (Photo by Getty Images)

The Hundred Years’ War: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

People gather around the Mona Lisa painting after its return in January 1914

Mona Lisa heist: how do you steal the world’s most famous painting?

Hiroshima.

Second World War

The end of WW2: 5 articles you can read right now

A contemporary painting shows Parisians seizing weapons from the Hôtel des Invalides on 14 July 1789, ahead of the storming of the Bastille later that day. Before revolution swept through Paris, peasants across the country were abolishing a whole social order from below.

The French Revolution: a tale of two revolutions

Egyptian ships sunk at the entrance of the Suez Canal at Port Said

Your guide to... the Suez Crisis

Paris rejects the red flag on 25 February 1848. Found in the Collection of Musée Carnavalet, Paris. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The death of a dream: why Europe’s great year of revolution in 1848 failed

Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France meet (in marquee, top) at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, June 1520. “For all their expressions of friendship,” writes Glenn Richardson, “the two kings spent most of the summit attempting to outshine one another”. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Fields of the Cloth of Gold: the greatest show on earth

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Two members of the BEF (British Expeditionary Forces)

Indian soldiers at Dunkirk . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Charles Cundall’s painting ‘The Withdrawal From Dunkirk, June 1940’

Second World War

9 things you (probably) didn’t know about Dunkirk

Postcards from the past competition

Postcards from the past: Aged between 6–13? Enter our exciting lockdown competition

Expelled Germans leaving Poland's western territories

“The war without an end”: what happened in Europe after VE Day?

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Coco Chanel photographed in Paris, c1936

Chanel and the Riviera . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A depiction of the Norman army, from the Bayeux Tapestry

Everything you wanted to know about the 1066 Norman invasion and the battle of Hastings – but were afraid to ask