Crime and punishment - Getty Images

Crime and punishment

How convict labour forged empires. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Lord Lucan and his wife Veronica, shortly after becoming engaged in 1963. It is thought that Lady Lucan was the intended target of the attack in 1974 (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Murder and vanishing without a trace: the mysterious case of Lord Lucan. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The princes in the Tower

Have we finally unmasked the killer of the Princes in the Tower?

The murders at Rillington Place: postwar London's grisliest crimes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A Victorian cult: inside the strange world of the Agapemone. 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.

The school for girls imprisoned at Tothill Fields in the late 1850s. A dedicated schoolmistress was employed to teach that institution’s large female population; in other prisons, the matron took lessons. (Engraving from Chronicle, via Alamy)

Reading, writing and retribution: inside Victorian prison schools. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Lord Lucan: the vanishing earl. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

“Impaled on a stake and left to die”: crime, punishment and law enforcement in ancient Egypt. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Police chase demonstrators during the 1936 battle of Cable Street

When Mosley's fascists took on East End London and lost: the Battle of Cable Street explained

Victorian women detectives. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English prime minister Spencer Perceval being assassinated by bankrupt businessman John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons

Why was Spencer Perceval assassinated? Inside the killing of a Georgian prime minister

Video podcastThe Iranian embassy siege: an SAS hostage drama in London. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hand-coloured engraving of someone being tortured on the wheel.

Stretched, crushed and impaled10 shocking torture methods from medieval history

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

Roman soldiers on the detail of Trajan's Column

Why decimation was the most unfair punishment in the Roman Army

Montage of famous assassinations, including Gandhi and JFK.

General History

50 assassinations that changed the world

A crusader army led by French king Louis IX clashes with Ayyubid forces at Mansurah in 1250. Two centuries of warfare across the Middle East “drew a torrent of often dangerous young men into the region”, writes Steve Tibble. (Photo by Getty Images)

Crusader criminals: why medieval knights went rogue in the Holy Land. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Kavita Puri's hidden histories: how Gurdip Singh Chaggar's murder in 1976 sparked a youth movement. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Priest's Hole, formerly a medieval sewer, beneath the kitchen in Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire.

A perilous game of hide and seekThe history of priest holes and hunters

Shipwrecked: the 18th-century looters who endured five months of hell. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration shows force-feeding of suffragettes

What was the Cat and Mouse Act? The reason why suffragettes were force-fed

Video podcastVictorian crime and punishment: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Victorian crime and punishment: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 21st-century Holocaust trial. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A police mugshot of Frank Lee Morris

The shocking Alcatraz escape of 11 June 1962

Alcatraz history: from pelican paradise to prolific prison

Photographs of some of the victims of the 1944 Nazi massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane

Second World War

Oradour-sur-Glane massacre: the brutal SS atrocity that still haunts France

From murderous motivations to chivalrous reputationsThe fascinating history of highwaymen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Inside a Jim Crow asylum. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.