The charge of the light, battle illustration

Military history

11th November 1918: An army lorry in a London street on Armistice Day, carrying jubilant passengers. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

11 November 1918: The day the world turned upside down

A British officer stands alongside two of his Japanese counterparts in 1914 in Tsingtao (now Qingdao). Japanese troops played a key role in the capture of that strategic German concession in north-east China. (Photo by Getty Images)

First World War: beyond the western front

A detail from the Bayeux tapestry depicting the conquest of England by the Normans. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

9 medieval battles more significant than Agincourt

Agincourt was one of the major battles of the Hundred Years' War.

Agincourt: what really happened

'Yorktown' sustains a hit during the battle of Midway. The US aircraft carrier sank three days later but, by then, the Japanese had accepted that their attempt to land a war-winning blow had failed. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

How miraculous was the battle of Midway?

Black and white image of Russian soldiers using a canon

Trial by fire: how a fortress siege changed the course of World War One

The Fortress: An epic battle of World War I. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A c1860 depiction of Wentworth Works steel manufacturer in Sheffield

Why Britain punched above its weight

Simon the cat

10 top cats in history

Britons. Join Your Country's Army! (Photo by Alfred Leete/ Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)

The death of Kitchener: a World War One mystery. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A visit to the Churchill War Rooms, London. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Inside the fort was a famous spring, St Helen’s Well, today Robin Hood’s Well. (© Bill Henderson)

Brunanburh: Where did the battle that saved England take place?

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the death of King Harold II during the battle of Hastings in 1066. (Photo by Getty Images)

Where did the battle of Hastings actually take place? 8 facts about the 1066 battle

Margaret Thatcher surrounded by British soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Royal Hampshire Regiment, during a surprise visit to the Falkland Islands, January 1983. Britain has "ceased to be a nation in retreat," declared the prime minister in the wake of the victory over Argentine forces.

How the Falklands War fired up Britain

Illustration by Davide Bonazzi.

The WW2 obsession: why the world can't move on from 1945

Max Hastings by Fran Monks

Max Hastings on the Dambusters. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Soldiers at the battle of Arnhem

Second World War

9 things you (probably) didn’t know about the battle of Arnhem

The wrecked remains of an Allied glider that participated in Market Garden

Second World War

Why Operation Market Garden, the Allies' battle for Arnhem, was a disaster in the planning

Jan Žižka, the general whose peasant army defied the Holy Roman Empire in the 1420s.

Christ’s communists: the radical religious sect that challenged the Holy Roman Empire

The battle of Agincourt, 1415

True-to-scale battle numbers and 15th-century life: look inside the revamped Agincourt museum

Sir Max Hastings: “While the Dambuster raid’s strategic impact was almost nil, its propaganda value was immense”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Crusaders defeat the Turks at Dorylaeum in 1097, as shown in a 14th-century illumination

Crusaders: did they fight for God or gold?

Poles watch the first of the German invasion planes over Warsaw, 1939. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Poland, 1939: World War Two begins. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Adolf Hitler watches German troops march in central Poland

Roger Moorhouse: How Hitler’s diplomatic miscalculation led to WW2

Engraving depicting Chinese opium smokers in a saloon

What caused the First Opium War?

The siege of Sevastopol

Q&AWhy did Britain fight the Crimean War?

A newspaper seller at the start of WW2

Countdown to WW2: the 72 hours that took the world to war

South Vietnam 1967: Battle weary U.S. soldiers pause for a moment's rest after some of the bloodiest fighting of the Vietnam War (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)

War trauma. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Pearl Harbour attack

Second World War

The 11 most significant battles of WW2

Franklin D Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill

Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms