The charge of the light, battle illustration

Military history

Four soliders of the 36th Sikhs, various ranks, 1896. The regiment was led in January 1897 to occupy the Samana posts, says Captain Jay Singh-Sohal. (Reproduced with permission from australiansikhheritage.com)

The battle of Saragarhi: when 21 Sikh soldiers stood against 10,000 men

Peterloo: the English uprising

William of Orange at the battle of the Boyne

Q&AWhen was England last successfully invaded by a foreign power?

Soldiers standing on the western front during WW2

Second World War

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Second World War

In 1358, women finally gained full knightly acceptance in England when they began to be admitted to chivalric orders. (Photo by Eugene Antonov/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Q&ACould a woman become a knight in medieval times?

US soldiers in Vietnam

From the Napoleonic Wars to Vietnam and Iraq: a history of war trauma

A sculpture dedicated to King Leonidas of the Spartans in Thermopylae, Greece. (Photo by iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Q&AWere there really only 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae?

US infantrymen in snowdrifts

Second World War

Q&AWhy is Hitler's Ardennes campaign called the battle of the Bulge?

A depiction of the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh (10 September 1547), the last formal battle between England and Scotland. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Q&AWhen was the last battle between England and Scotland?

Professor Dame Janet L Nelson

Charlemagne: medieval empire builder. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustrations by Ian Morris.

The Civil War cross-dressers: the women who swapped dresses for breeches

An illustration of the battle of Agincourt. By attacking over unsuitable ground, Charles d’Albret “doomed his army”, says Rupert Matthews. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The top 10 military blunders in history

The four-month Siege of Malta.

The Great Siege of Malta, 1565: the crusaders' last stand

The Peterloo Massacre

The Peterloo Massacre: how a peaceful protest turned into bloody chaos

Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, seated from left to right, in Yalta for the 'Big Three' Conference. In February 1945, British diplomats were already joking that it was actually a conference of the ‘Big Two-and-a-Half’. (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

WW2: When Britain stood (not quite) alone

Winston Churchill gives his famous 'V for Victory' sign while addressing crowds from the balcony of City Hall in Sheffield, November 1941. Churchill's "inspirational" wartime speeches "galvanised the country and became part of our national lexicon", says historian Dr Nick Lloyd. (Photo by Capt. Horton/ Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)

Debate: Is British history too fixated with the story of the world wars?

The battle for Okinawa: one Marine’s story

A portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte fleeing from the battlefield of Waterloo (18 June 1815) after his defeat by the British under Wellington and the Prussians commanded by Blucher. A print from 'Le Patriote Illustre'. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

What is the significance of Waterloo?

Members of the Home Guard train racing pigeons as messengers in Blackburn, July 1940. Soon, carrier birds like this would be supplying vital intelligence on German arms factories and troop movements in occupied Europe. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The pigeons’ war on Hitler

The (forgotten) Iraq war

The life of Saladin. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tom Hanks, Matt Damon and Edward Burns in 'Saving Private Ryan' (1998), directed by Steven Spielberg. (Photo by Dreamworks LLC /Paramount Pictures)

Second World War

D-Day on screen: 5 TV and film depictions of the Second World War operation

A new view of D-Day. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Troops from the 48th Royal Marines at Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer on Juno Beach, Normandy, France, during the D-Day landings, 6 June 1944. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

Your guide to D-Day: what happened, how many casualties were there, and what did it accomplish?

10 photographs that made history

A painting depicts a 14th-century sea battle

Medieval inspiration: what the fantasy genre owes to the 14th century

To the point: soldiers prepare themselves for hand-to-hand combat by learning bayonet skills. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

The road to D-Day: the masterplan. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Members of a British parachute regiment consult their maps during a training exercise just weeks before D-Day. Training was intensive – and dangerous. (Photo by Haywood Magee/Picture Post /Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The road to D-Day: getting ready for action. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Allied troops on the landing crafts did not know if they would survive D-Day, but they knew the beaches had to be taken. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

D-Day: the WW2 battle through the eyes of the men who were there

The killing zone: This photograph by Robert F Sargent, known as ‘Taxis to Hell – and Back – into the Jaws of Death’, shows American troops wading towards Omaha Beach on the morning of 6 June 1944. (Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

D-Day: 24 hours that changed the world