Historical people

John Blanke. (Illustration: Rose Wilkinson for BBC History Magazine)

Black faces of Tudor England

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The real history behind ‘The White Princess’

The operation

John Hunter and the horrors of 18th-century surgery

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Scandal, conspiracy and the affair of the poisons: inside the court of Louis XIV

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Who decided Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, should be executed?

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Ruth Williams Khama: first lady of Botswana

Full-length portrait of (left) American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–91) and entertainer Commodore Nutt (1814–81), c1862. (Photo by HultonGetty/GettyImages)

Circus sensation: PT Barnum’s greatest wheezes

A portrait of James Gordon Bennett, Jr (1841–1918), by Alexis Joseph Perignon, 1867. (Photo by The New York Historical Society/Getty Images)

Q&A Why do we say ‘Gordon Bennett’?

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Benjamin Franklin in London . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Statue at temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Luxor (Photo by Getty)

Hatshepsut: a guide to the life and rule of ancient Egypt’s female pharaoh

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First World War

Life of the Week: Kaiser Wilhelm II

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Life of the Week: Romulus Augustus

A portrait of the writer and antiquarian John Aubrey

John Aubrey: chronicler of the 17th century

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Princess Victoria Melita: the British princess who scandalised the royal family

A portrait of Joan of Arc,

The real Joan of Arc