Illustration of a couple

Sex and love

Regency scandal and the history of canals. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Anne Boleyn, who was executed by beheading on 19 May 1536 after being found guilty of high treason, was said to have had "much joy and pleasure in death". (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Did Anne Boleyn crave the crown?

Dying well; tears and sorrow on the death of a youth. Treasury of Wisdom, 15th century. (© The Art Archive/Alamy)

Heavenly dew: crying in the Middle Ages

Love, health and the weather: 9 things medieval Londoners worried about

Jane Austen

My history heroJane Austen (1775–1817). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mary I’s phantom pregnancy

The Victorians’ surprisingly liberal attitude towards gay men

Food from the past and the history of illegitimacy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Second World War

Second World War heroes ‘had most sex appeal’

Mistresses through history: the term wasn’t always about secret sex

A Valentine's card showing a devil spearing an old lady on a pitchfork.

In picturesVictorian Valentine's Cards

Love and marriage in Tudor England

From loincloths to corsets: a brief history of underwear with Horrible Histories’ Greg Jenner

A statue of Aphrodite

Christianity’s rocky relationship with sex

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn: Suzannah Lipscomb dispels myths about the lovers who changed history

A portrait of Richard III.

Inside the mind of Richard III

Portrait of Henry VIII

Q&AWhich of Henry VIII's wives was his best match?

Revealed: Jane Austen's country life

First World War

Revealed: the British First World War officer who married a nurse who wanted him dead

Top 10 strange history stories

Historical sex objects to feature in classrooms

An illustration of King Henry VIII and his six wives

The hidden lives of Henry VIII's six wives

Viking treasures and Hitler's 'perfect woman'. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, speaking at a Nazi rally in 1936. (Photo by ullstein bild / ullstein bild via Getty Images)

When Hitler’s perfect woman came to call

BBC History Magazine

Did Robin Hood have a love interest before Maid Marian?

Top 5 Jane Austen recipes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Should we rewrite Jane Austen’s classic novels?

6 royal births that rocked a nation

Illustration by Femke De Jong

The generational shift from home births to hospitals

A Pompeian fresco from the first century showing a woman tuning a musical instrument. Excavations at the partially buried Roman city reveal that women played a prominent role in the home, and that they took personal grooming very seriously indeed. (Photo by: Werner Forman/UIG via Getty Images)

At home with the Romans