Historical people

A 16th-century map showing Magellan's ship

A voyage from hell: how Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world changed history

Ruth Ellis and her friend Desmond Cussen, who supplied the gun with which she shot David Blakely. (Photo by Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

Ruth Ellis and the hanging that rocked a nation

The nearly 2,000-mile First Transcontinental Railroad, seen shortly before completion in 1869. (Photo by Fotosearch/Getty Images)

How wild was the Wild West?

King Ludwig II of Bavaria. (Photo by Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

9 eccentric monarchs through history

Lucrezia Borgia with her father Pope Alexander VI

Lucrezia Borgia: is her bad reputation deserved?

In 1937, Amelia Earhart, one of the world’s most famous aviators, apparently disappeared without a trace during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

From Jack the Ripper to Amelia Earhart: 17 unsolved historical mysteries

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784 - 1865), the British Liberal statesman who served almost continually as Prime Minister between 1855 and 1865, pictured circa 1860. (Photo by Herbert Fry/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Lord Palmerston: the people’s champion

Jesse James is one of America’s most notorious outlaw heroes. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

How historically accurate are film portrayals of Jesse James?

Perkin Warbeck, an imposter and pretender to the English throne, being humiliated in the stocks before his execution in 1499. Warbeck was used by Henry VII’s Yorkist enemies in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. (Getty Images)

Imposters in history: 16 famous con-artists and pretenders

Scottish soldier and Field Marshal Douglas Haig (1861 - 1928) visiting the troops during the First World War. (Central Press/Getty Images)

First World War

Field Marshal Haig: a man much misunderstood?

In only two years, Hernán Cortés brought about the downfall of an efficient military civilisation through a combination of diplomacy, warfare, tactics, luck and sheer force of personality, writes Caroline Dodds. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Cortés and Montezuma: the conquering of Tenochtitlan

Is it true that an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their own prime minister in 1672? (Illustration by Glen McBeth)

Q&A Is it true that an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their own prime minister in 1672?

A brief history of capital punishment in Britain

Bill Edwardes, who at the age of 16 joined the army to fight during WW2.

Second World War

The boys who lied about their age to fight in WW2

Marble bust of Agrippina the Younger

Agrippina the Younger: the first true empress of Ancient Rome