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A painting in the tomb of Inherkha – a priest wearing the mask of Horus is performing the opening of the mouth ritual. The purpose was to restore to the deceased the use of the senses, thus restoring life in the next world. Ancient Egyptian 20th dynasty c1186-1070 BC. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

Why was mummification used in Ancient Egypt, and why did they leave the heart in the body?

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s funniest jokes

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Podcast Website large Tracy Borman

Historical fact and fiction . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Elizabeth I podcast

Inside the mind of Elizabeth I . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A First World War silk screened poster c1918 showing a frightening German soldier holding a bloodied bayonet. Caption reads:

First World War

Why did the Allies call Germans ‘Huns’ during World War I?

Mrs Frederica Bell, photographed with her children Freda, Roy and 'King' on the Pacific island of Raoul. (Photo courtesy of Lydia Syson/Mr Peacock's Possessions)

A real Swiss Family Robinson?

A 12th-century English manuscript shows a surgeon operating on a patient's eye. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Kill or cure? 10 medieval medical practices and their effectiveness

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Britons under Nazi rule podcast

Britons under Nazi rule . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Barristers' wigs

Q&A Why are barristers ‘called to the bar’?

The Library Queen Victoria’s Indians

Nurses serve lunch to patients at a Birmingham hospital, 1939. (Photo by Humphrey Spender/Picture Post/Getty Images)

What was healthcare like in Britain before the NHS?

Guillaume de Jumieges, Cesta Normanorum, f° 116, letter with dropped initial, William the Conqueror receives the chronicler's manuscript, 11th century, France, Rouen, Bibliotheque Municipale.

William the Conqueror: hero or villain?

Five theories about Jack the Ripper's identity. (Photo by dreamstime.com)

The Ripper of our nightmares: 5 theories about Jack the Ripper’s identity

Composite image of famous women: Cleopatra, Marie Curie, Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame CJ Walker, Jane Austen, Emmeline Pankhurst, Ethel Smyth, the Virgin Mary, Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Diana, Princess of Wales, Amelia Earhart.

100 women who changed the world

A c1750 watercolour shows workers

How war sparked the industrial revolution