Historical people

An engraving of John Milton in 1670. By that time he’d been blind for nearly two decades – but continued to express strong views on religion and the monarchy in his writing (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Long road to paradise: the life of John Milton and how he created his masterpiece, Paradise Lost. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Christine de Pizan, pictured speaking to a trio of inspirational women in an illustration in her Book of the City of Ladies, written around the turn of the 15th century (Photo by Album/Alamy Stock Photo)

Medieval influencers: 4 women who brought change to the Middle Ages. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Fess Parker, an American actor, as Davy Crockett

The man in the coonskin cap: your guide to Davy Crockett

The surgeon Robert Liston prepares to cut open a patient in the first half of the 19th century. Known as the “fastest knife in the west end”, Liston could remove a leg in less than 30 seconds. For most patients, however, the agony was more prolonged. (Wellcome Library, London)

"An enlightened turn": how medicine (and the vaccination) developed in Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A mural in Bristol of activist Roy Hackett, one of the primary organisers of the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott (Photo by Steve Taylor ARPS/Alamy Stock Photo)

Hakim Adi | “Racism in Britain has a long history – but so does anti-racism”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An 1872 illustration from the weekly newspaper Days’ Doings shows a shoplifter being apprehended (Photo by Look and Learn/Rosenberg Collection/Bridgeman Images)

Lady swindlers: 6 women who turned to lives of crime and became queens of the underworld. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Video podcastJustinian: life of the week. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rune stone. (Photo by Getty Images)

Reading the runes: what we can learn about everyday life in the Viking Age. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A collage showing historical babies. Edward VI as a baby, Edward VIII as a baby, and a depiction of the baby Jesus.

Historical baby names: a guide to baby name trends from the Anglo-Saxons to today

A cup depicting a male couple making love

The boy that emperor Nero made his ‘wife’: what the tragedy of the castrated Sporus tells us about homosexuality in ancient Rome

Author/veterinarian Dr. James Alfred Wight (pen name James Herriot) holding up a black cat that he is examining at his veterinary surgery.

Who was the real James Herriot?The true story behind All Creatures Great and Small

Video podcastCatherine de' Medici: life of the week. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Bust of Lucius Verus.

The worst Roman emperors: 8 of the bloodiest from ancient Rome's history

An image of Aethelstan

Æthelstan and the foundation of England: your guide to the 'first king of the English'

Frida Gustavsson as Freydís Eiríksdóttir in season 3 of Vikings: Valhalla

Was Freydís Eiríksdóttir a hero or a deranged murderess?

Laura Berlin as Emma of Normandy in season 3 of Vikings: Valhalla

Emma of Normandy: not just a two-time queen consort of England

Portrait of Catherine de Medici, also known as the Serpent Queen

Catherine de MediciThe life, death and legacy of the 'Serpent Queen'

Suffragettes armed with materials to chain themselves to railings

Suffragettes history facts: 10 things you might not know about the Votes for Women campaigners

Suffragette Annie Kenney

8 famous suffragettes and votes for women campaigners

Emily Davison, photographed a few days before she was fatally injured after stepping in front of the king's horse during the Derby

Emily Davison: the suffragette who stepped in front of the king's horse

An African samurai: the tall, strong African man who acquired the name Yasuke in Japan was at first an object of curiosity but soon became a prized samurai warrior serving a powerful warlord in the violent intrigues that wracked the country during that volatile era. ((Illustration by Lynn Hatzius for BBC World Histories)

Who is Yasuke? The true story of the African who became Japan's first black samurai

Oleg Gordievsky

Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent who changed the course of the Cold War

Video podcastLord Byron: life of the week. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Painting of Lord Byron and his Muse

“Mad, bad and dangerous to know”: the scandalous life of Lord Byron

The outlaw Johannes Bückler, also known as Schinderhannes

Q&AWho was Schinderhannes and why is he known as the ‘German Robin Hood’?

Lord Byron: 9 objects that defined the infamous poet's life and story. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Video podcastMary Wollstonecraft: life of the week. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British prime minister Harold Wilson, March 1967. (Photo by Michael Stroud/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Harold Wilson: 5 facts about the Labour Party prime minister

Margaret Beaufort, shown in a c16th‐century oil on panel painting

Margaret Beaufort: mother of the Tudors

Portrait of Mary Surratt

The real history of Mary Surratt's controversial role in the Lincoln conspiracy