The charge of the light, battle illustration

Military history

First World War

Your 60-second guide to Ypres

First World War

Telling jokes in the trenches: First World War newspaper The Wipers Times celebrated in new BBC drama

Flodden 1513: the biggest ever Anglo-Scottish battle

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, displayed remarkable leadership of the British army at the battle of Waterloo. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Waterloo: the historians' verdict

BBC History Magazine

Excavation search for soldiers killed on Flodden battlefield

Second World War

Churchill’s wartime speeches are overrated, claims academic

The LibraryJohnnie Walker: U-boat hunter in the Second World War

Q&A: When and where was the trebuchet invented?

A Second World War memorial monument depicting Soviet soldiers

Q&AWhy did Britain and France not declare war on the Soviet Union when the Red Army marched on Poland in September 1939?

Residents of Chongqing on the streets of their bombed-ravaged city in the autumn of 1940. China's temporary wartime capital was subjected to 218 Japanese air raids between May 1938 and August 1941, costing nearly 12,000 lives. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

China’s forgotten Second World War

The Royal Artillery Memorial in London is a tribute to the immense power of artillery and its dominant role in the Great War. Pictured here is a bronze statue of a Royal Artillery driver, leaning back against the parapet in an attitude of exhaustion or contemplation. (Photo by View Pictures/UIG via Getty Images)

Where history happened: remembering the Great War

George G Meade, best known for defeating Confederate General Robert E Lee at the battle of Gettysburg in 1863. (Photo by Matthew Brady/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

Gettysburg: Lincoln’s greatest victory

A depiction of Hannibal at the battle of Trasimene, which is "today remembered as one of the most stunning victories in military history". (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

A big day in history: Hannibal smashes his foes "at the very gates of Rome"

German soldiers with a horse-drawn cart during the retreat from Ukraine in 1943. The idea of Teutonic efficiency was a triumph of Nazi spin, says James Holland. (Keystone/Getty Images)

The great misconceptions of the Second World War

The LibraryBritain’s brutal battles for hearts and minds

A crew of Dambusters pictured together in c1943. The famed Dambusters raid, Operation Chastise, was an RAF attempt to breach German dams and so "deprive Ruhr industry, and the Mittelland Canal of water, over the longest period of time possible". (Royal Air Force Official Photographer/ IWM via Getty Images)

The legacy of the Dambusters

Q&A: Why did news of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar take so long to reach England?

The Spanish Armada: Tudor spin portrayed the events of August 1588 as a glorious English victory but, argues Robert Hutchinson, bad weather and bad tactics had more to do with the Spanish fleet's failure than Elizabethan derring-do. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

The Spanish Armada: England's lucky escape

British soldiers in Normandy. Though Goodwood cost the British some 200 tanks, infantry losses were relatively light, says Mark Urban. (Capt. E G Malindine/IWM via Getty Images)

Operation Goodwood: one of the biggest British disasters of the Second World War?

Tragedy of the Templars: The Rise and Fall of the Crusader States

How many years of its existence has Britain been at war?

The Battle on the Ice, fought between the men of Novgorod and the Teutonic Knights, was a landmark in European history, says Dominic Sandbrook. (Alamy)

A big day in history: Nevsky's Russians crush the Teutonic Knights

Holding the line: France in the First World War

An oil painting depicting the battle of Camperdown, a "crushing British victory" over the Batavian (Dutch) Republic in the North Sea. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Tales from Nelson's navy

LA Times photo from newspaper report 1942

A big day in history: Japanese planes attack Los Angeles. Or do they?

An illustration depicting the battle of Naseby, arguably one of the most significant land battles in British history. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

20 important battles that shaped Britain

A view of Valletta during the Second World War, showing its harbour filled with naval hardware. (Photo by Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The LibraryBritain's island weapon: Malta in the Second World War

Q&A: Where does the word ‘crack’, describing military units, originate?

The Black Prince's tomb in Canterbury Cathedral depicts Edward III's son as a resting warrior, a paragon of knightly virtue. The prince conceived the tomb's design himself but not everyone has bought into his favourable assessment of his life's achievements. (Photo by RDImages/Epics/Getty Images)

The Black Prince: hero or villain?

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries by Jacques-Louis David

Napoleon's great cultural charade