Victorian

A fruit and vegetable market, painted by Joachim Beuckelaer.

A brief history of veganism in Britain

Being invited to become a 'guest' of the Tower of London in medieval England meant, more often than not, that you would soon be food for the crows. (Image by Getty Images/RM Creative)

10 historical haunted sites across Britain

Gin Lane, a print issued in 1751 by painter and printmaker William Hogarth. It depicts the perceived evils of the consumption of gin. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The 18th-century craze for gin

A cartoon from 1862 shows a pair 'garroters' attacking a victim. (Photo by The Cartoon Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Gangs and knife-crime fears: how has Britain responded through history?

Black and white portrait image of Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Who was Cardinal John Henry Newman?

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William Dalrymple is an award-winning writer and historian based in India. (Photo by Bikramjt Bose)

“This was a corporation that could topple kings”: William Dalrymple on the East India Company . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

(Photo by Getty Images)

The package holiday revolution

Ballerina Margot Fonteyn in a tutu

Q&A Who invented the tutu?

A portrait of Queen Victoria and her family

Q&A Who were Prince Albert’s family, the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas?

Archduchess Ileana’s great grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose birth certificate Ileana desperately needed to get hold of (Getty)

Queen Victoria and the Nazis: the strange tale of the search for the royal family’s Aryan origins

A photo which was believed to be of the Loch Ness Monster

The quest for the Loch Ness Monster

Engraving depicting Chinese opium smokers in a saloon

What caused the First Opium War?

The siege of Sevastopol

Q&A Why did Britain fight the Crimean War?

Bottles of snake oil

Q&A Did salesmen really sell snake oil?

Queen Victoria, her husband Prince Albert, and their nine children.

Q&A Could Queen Victoria have prevented World War I?