Period

Harold Godwinson is proclaimed king of England in the Bayeux Tapestry. It may have been commissioned by a Norman but this magnificent artwork repeatedly acknowledges the English leader’s piety and courage. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Why is Harold Godwinson a hero of the Bayeux Tapestry?

17th-century London: a city shaped by catastrophe

Medieval forgeries

Daily life in ancient Egypt: everything you wanted to know

Novelist Kate Mosse on The City of Tears

Volunteers shovel sand in Fulham in 1941, filling bags used to protect windows from bomb blasts. Our clichés of the Blitz don’t tell the whole story, writes Lucy Worsley. (Photo by Mary Evans)

Lucy Worsley on Blitz Spirit: the courageous stories of six Londoners

The Dark Ages: a ‘black hole’ in Britain’s history

Historians have chosen their favourite historical novels.

22 of the best historical fiction novels to help you escape to the past

Adolf Hitler. (Photo by Heinrich Hoffmann/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Second World War

Your guide to Adolf Hitler: key facts about the Nazi dictator

1962: London’s big freeze

Mary Tudor with her five stepmothers

Mary Tudor and her five stepmothers: what was their relationship like?

Max AdamsThe First Kingdom: Britain in the Age of Arthur

This image from the Nibelungenlied manuscript shows Pilgrim welcoming Kriemhild, a fictional character described as his neice in the text (Photo by Alamy)

The forged texts of the Middle Ages: why Europe's holy men turned to counterfeiting

Edward I’s letters

Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the US

Elizabeth BlackwellThe ‘first female doctor’, who entered medicine to prove a point

Cary Grant: from humble beginnings to Hollywood icon

Blitz spirit or broken morale?

An account of the story of James Allen, whose sex at birth was revealed only by an autopsy conducted after their death

'Female husbands': the secret lives of 18th-century transgender pioneers

Actor Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster in James Whale's classic 1931 film

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the birth of a gothic monster

The ruins of the once magnificent Roche Abbey

The dissolution of the monasteries: mindless violence or planned precision?

Photo of an Anglo Saxon helmet found at Sutton Hoo

Sutton Hoo: a brief guide to the Anglo-Saxon burial site and its discovery

Illustration of the Black Death from the Chroicles of Gilles Li Muisis (1272-1352), Abbaye Saint-Martin de Tournai (Photo by Alamy)

The Black Death: everything you wanted to know

Smokey the bear is presented with a firefighter's helmet

The paratrooper, the poet's pet and the real Winnie: 10 famous bears in history

Margaret MacMillan gives a lecture on the reasons for conflict throughout history – and how warfare has shaped the human story (Photo by Getty Images)

Why do we fight wars?

Why Charles I had to die

A depiction of Robin Hood, the heroic archer in English folklore who supposedly robbed the rich and gave to the poor. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Robin Hood: 7 myths about the legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest

A guide to the Norse gods

Sutton Hoo helmet Anglo-Saxon

The discovery at Sutton Hoo: when the Dark Ages were lit up

QuizHow well do you know Year 9 history?

A guide to the Roman army, plus 10 facts about life in the legions