Historical people

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A portrait of a member of the Borgias family

The Borgias: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Lady Emma Hamilton

Nelson’s sensational mistress: how Emma Hamilton took Europe by storm

Statue of Ibn Battuta at the Islamic culture center, Quanzhou, Fujian, China

Ibn Battuta: the most famous traveller of the medieval Arab world

Bust of Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo the Magnificent The astounding life of the ‘delightful tyrant’ of Renaissance Florence

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Annie Garthwaite discusses her new novel based on the life of Cecily Neville, who worked tirelessly to help her family seize the throne. (Image by Getty Images)

The forgotten matriarch of the Wars of the Roses . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

William Wallace on trial in 1305

William Wallace: who was the Scottish rebel who defied Edward I?

'The Journey of the Magi' by Benozzo Gozzoli, commissioned by Piero the Gouty for the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. It features his son Lorenzo, who would become known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, as one of the three kings

“They were on a level with today’s billionaires” – your guide to the Medici: bankers to the Pope, rulers of Florence, patrons of the Renaissance

Thomas Crapper started a plumbing business in Chelsea in 1861 and pioneered some of the most revolutionary designs of sanitary engineering in the 19th century – but he didn't 'invent' the toilet

The legend of Thomas Crapper, the man who didn’t invent the toilet

Walter Scott: an engraving after a painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence of the Scottish poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott

Walter Scott: the man who invented Scotland

The British Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on the day of George VI's coronation

Britain’s May Queen: your guide to Queen Mary of Teck

Black and white image of a group of five men sat on the floor in a room in Fiji. One of them is pointing at another with a serious expression on his face.

Cakobau: the first (and last) king of Fiji

The Persian ambassador bows before Louis XIV in the Palace of Versailles

King of the world: how Louis XIV turned France into a global power

George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla

Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla: the history behind The Current War

Robespierre is guillotined on 28 July 1794. Had he died two years earlier, his name would now be associated with liberty and equality, argues Marisa Linton. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Robespierre: man of terror

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

Guillotined in the French Revolution: the bloody story through 7 severed heads