France

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Looking out across the Channel, shell craters pockmark Pointe du Hoc – a German artillery position seized by US Rangers. The promontory is one of many reminders of D-Day along the Normandy coastline. (Photo by Getty Images)

History explorer: D-Day beaches . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Notre Dame of Paris at first light (Photo by Captblack76-Dreamstime.com)

Notre-Dame . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Melvyn Bragg speaks to the History Extra podcast about the 12th-century love story of Heloise and Abelard. (Photo by Awakening/Getty Images)

Melvyn Bragg on Heloise and Abelard . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A French print by the Thierry bothers depicting the appearance of the landscape and inhabitants of the Moon

How to carry off a great hoax

Battle of Verdun. French trench on the front lines, 1916. (Photo by Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Verdun

As a child king, Henry VI – shown in a c16th-century portrait – learned the lessons of kingship from books. Unfortunately, those books didn't extol the merits of ruthlessness and practising realpolitik. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

How Henry VI’s love of peace cost him the throne – and his life

Illustration of Isabella of France. From the book ‘Our Queen Mothers’ by Elizabeth Villiers. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Isabella of France: the rebel queen

A maid polishes a silver dish. Female domestic servants were highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, but in Reformation France they found some ways to fight back. (Photo by: Christophel Fine Art/UIG via Getty Images)

The women who wouldn’t be silenced in Reformation France

French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette and husband Willy, photographed c1902. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)

Who was the real Colette?

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15th century French illuminated manuscript: The flight into Egypt. (Photo by Getty Images)

Wonders of the Middle Ages . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Adam Zamoyski offers his views on the iconic French leader, Napoleon. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

Napoleon: the insecure emperor . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

James I of Aragon, depicted in a 15th-century portrait. A king dubbed 'the Conqueror' invested enormous energy in projecting an image of power and authority. But behind the facade lay an insecure ruler who feared failure. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The Library James I of Aragon: inside the mind of a medieval king

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A Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) is approaching Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, 6th June 1944. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)

Tales from D-Day . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting a naked man with an erection reaching out towards a naked woman, who is covering both her face and her pudenda with her hands. (© Bayeux Museum)

The Bayeux Tapestry with knobs on: what do the tapestry’s 93 penises tell us?

An American recruitment poster. “US forces showed an impressive ability to learn at speed,” says Nick Lloyd. (© Getty)

The great misconceptions of the First World War