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ever before,” says Margaret MacMillan. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

“We’ve come to think that peace is normal, but that’s not the reality”: Margaret MacMillan on humanity’s compulsion to go to war . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Photo of Abraham Lincoln

Q&A Did Abraham Lincoln’s beard win him the election?

Halloween postcard

10 things you didn’t know about the history (and mystery) of Halloween

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The month of November, gathering acorns and hare hunting. (Photo by Getty Images)

Medieval daily life: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. National Portrait Gallery, London. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

The lost heirs of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on Katherine of Aragon’s failed pregnancies

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Statue of Winston Churchill at Parliament Square, London (Photo by Dreamstime)

Should I stay or I should go? The problem with historical monuments in 2020 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Even after her death in 2013, her record continued to be fiercely contested. (Tom Stoddart/Getty Images)

How should history remember Margaret Thatcher?

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Sculpture dedicated to king Leonidas of the Spartans in Thermopylae, Greece.

Sparta . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Actor Stephanie Levi-John as Lina in 'The Spanish Princess'

Catalina: the real history of The Spanish Princess favourite

Princess Anne and Queen Elizabeth II

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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

In 802 Charlemagne took delivery of an elephant, sent to him by Harun al-Rashid, the caliph in Baghdad. Here, a manuscript illumination from a late 12th century English Latin bestiary. (Image by Alamy)

8 turning points in medieval European history

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The storming of Beziers

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Tom Cribb lands a punch on Tom Molineaux while Molineaux's trainer, Bill Richmond, looks on. Molineaux got the upper hand in the pair's first fight – which ended in controversy when a mob stormed the ring – but was defeated in this, the 1811 rematch. (Edward Gooch/Edward Gooch/Getty Images)

The ‘Black Terror’: the story of Britain’s first black sports star

A photograph of the Tower of London, from the river

Anne Boleyn, Beefeaters, Guy Fawkes and the princes: a brief history of the Tower of London