The charge of the light, battle illustration

Military history

The Spanish Armada defeated in the English Channel in July 1588, by Hendrick Cornelis Vroom, c1600. (Picture by DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/Getty Images)

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Spanish Armada

A wooden cross marks the spot, just over 20 miles west of Newcastle, where Oswald apparently raised his own cross before ambushing Cadwallon. If the Anglo-Saxon warlord's attack had failed, writes Edoardo Albert, England might now be a lot smaller. (Photo by Getty Images)

Hell in Heavenfield: the Anglo-Saxon battle "as important as Hastings". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Combat helicopters fly over US troops during a search and destroy mission, South Vietnam. Despite their military might, argues Max Hastings, the Americans were doomed to fail during the Vietnam War. (Photo by Patrick Christain/Getty Images)

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

Adam Zamoyski, photographed in London. "We're brought up on a whole ant-heap of myths about Napoleon. The apocryphal stories that swirl around him are legion," he says. (Photography by Frank Monks for BBC History Magazine)

Books interview with Adam Zamoyski: “Napoleon was motivated by profound insecurity”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

JFK prepares to sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. (Picture by Corbis/Getty Images)

Nuclear nightmare: the Cuban missile crisis. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sir Winston Churchill leaves his London home for Chartwell, Kent. (Photo by PA-Images)

A new life of Churchill. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An illustration depicting the Heiji Insurrection of c1159 - one of the first samurai battles. (Photo by Alamy)

A brief history of samurai warfare

Director Peter Jackson in 2015 in Beijing, China (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Peter Jackson on the First World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A detail from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the death of Harold Godwinson at the battle of Hastings, 1066. Victory at Hastings did not make Duke William of Normandy king of England – at least, not immediately. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Q&AWhat happened after the Battle of Hastings?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A vintage colour lithograph depicting King Richard III at the battle of Bosworth. The battle of Bosworth (or Bosworth Field) was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York. (Photo by Getty Images)

The battle for Bosworth field: Historians react to decision to build on battlefield where Richard III died. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The opening ceremony of London’s Tower Bridge on 30 June 1894. The bridge became a symbol of London’s importance as a global maritime hub (Photo by Francis Frith/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Britain's imperial landmarks: The empire on our doorsteps

British troops go over the top of the trenches during the Battle of the Somme, 1916. The Somme was one of the bloodiest clashes of the First World War, causing more than one million casualties over five months. (Photo by Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

First World War

The First World War: Was it worth it?

Catholics massacre Protestants in Ulster in a contemporary illustration

10 great misconceptions of the Civil War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

US soldiers man a machine gun post in the Argonne Forest, during the Meuse-Argonne offensive, 1918. (Photo by US Army Signal Corps/American Stock/Getty Images)

'Foch's Grand Offensive': the biggest battle you've never heard of. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A Battle of Britain type 'scramble', circa 1940. An improved Spitfire is pushed onto the runway by a group of pilots from the squadron. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The good war?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Great wars were started by young men with “jangling hormones”, argues Simon Jenkins

A half-hour history of Europe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A battle of Flodden memorial statue of one of the Hawick Callants on horseback, raising the captured banner aloft in triumph. Hawick, Roxburghshire, Scotland. (Getty Images)

History explorer: the battle of Flodden. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Painting depicting Cromwell at the head of his troops following the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, by Ernest Crofts. (Photo by De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images)

Oliver Cromwell: the secret of his military genius. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Robert the Bruce, famous for beating the English army of Edward II despite having far fewer troops, is commemorated at the 1314 battleground in Bannockburn. (Dreamstime)

Robert the Bruce: champion of Scotland or murderous usurper?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A scene depicted on the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

The Normans: a timeline

As many as 15 people may have been killed, and a further 500 badly injured, during the 1819 riot in Manchester that came to be known as the 'Peterloo' Massacre. (Rischgitz/Getty Images)

16 August 1819: Militia massacres protesters at ‘Peterloo’

A First World War silk screened poster c1918 showing a frightening German soldier holding a bloodied bayonet. Caption reads: "Beat back the Hun with Liberty Bonds". (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

First World War

Why did the Allies call Germans 'Huns' during World War I?

Britons under Nazi rule podcast

Britons under Nazi rule. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A c1750 watercolour shows workers "mixing the powder" at Woolwich Arsenal. "The institutions that made up the 18th-century British 'state' existed entirely to provide the resources for war," argues Priya Satia. (Photo by Bridgeman Art Library)

How war sparked the industrial revolution. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British former field marshal Douglas Haig, inspects poppies before Armistice Day, October 1922. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Remembering the First World War: blood, poppies and poetry. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Allied soldiers with captured prisoners of war after the battle of Amiens during the First World War, 1918. (Photo by Authenticated News/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Remembering the battle of Amiens. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration by Glen McBeth

Did castle defenders pour boiling oil on their assailants during a medieval siege?

A photograph of a crowd in Berlin celebrating Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany's proclamation of war against Great Britain, August 1914. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The Library1914: Countdown to catastrophe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Members of the Palmers Green and Winchmore Hill LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) LDV (Local Defence Volunteers) dressed in their civilian clothes march along a platform passing a steam locomotive on 1 July 1940 in London. (Photo by Harry Todd/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Dad’s Army guide to defending Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.