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President Kennedy holds a press conference shortly before the failed 'Bay of Pigs' invasion of Cuba. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Bay of Pigs invasion: Kennedy’s Cuban catastrophe

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Young and Dabiri podcast

Africa’s contested past . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Pathologist Thomas Harvey holds the brain of Albert Einstein in a jar, Kansas, 1994. Harvey, the on-duty pathologist during the eminent physicist's autopsy, removed Einstein’s brain and kept most of it stored in two glass jars, refrigerated inside a beer cooler, for more than 20 years. (Photo by Michael Brennan/Getty Images)

Q&A What happened to Einstein's brain?

A portrait of Elizabeth I, who, says Susan Doran, “confounded her Catholic enemies, imposed her will on the political scene, turned England into a strong Protestant state and presided over a glittering court culture”. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I: the great unifier

A badge promoting the Tufty Club, an organisation launched by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to educate children on road safety, 1941. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

Safety first: 20th-century health and safety messages

A portrait of Edward VI. The young monarch’s support for a trade venture through the North-East Passage laid the foundations for the Elizabethan age of exploration. (Photo by GeorgiosArt/Getty Images)

Edward VI: boy king and religious zealot

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The distinctive polygon towers of Caernarfon Castle. (Photo by Gail Johnson/Getty Images)

History explorer The conquest of Wales . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This painting in Kensington Palace shows a group standing on a balustrade. Among them are George I’s two Turkish grooms of the chamber, ‘Mustapha’ and ‘Mohamed’. (Photo by Steve Vidler/Alamy Stock Photo)

Tales of the Turk

A poster produced for the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) promoting express rail travel to the Lancashire seaside resort of Blackpool

The great escape: Britain’s love affair with the seaside holiday

Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Henry VIII, c1537. Henry’s clash with the church was, says George Bernard, the most significant episode of the Tudor era and transformed England’s relationship with continental Europe. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

The Library Henry VIII and the scourge of papal power

A crowned Tudor rose. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Stringer via Getty Images)

Why the Tudors grab us

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Illustration by Jonty Clark

Ye olde travel guide: Rome 192 AD . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A statue of Æthelflæd which stands in the grounds of Tamworth Castle in Staffordshire. (Photo by Chris Gibson/Alamy Stock Photo)

Æthelflæd: iron lady of Mercia

Four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, hold the first sit-in (Corbis.)

Timeline Key moments in the American civil rights movement

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Andrew Dickson on Shakespeare's greatest actor podcast

Shakespeare’s greatest actor . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.