Painting of Daniel Mendoza

Sport and leisure

A sketch shows two topless men wearing pale shorts fighting each other in a boxing ring

From a lion-taming lightweight to the Muscular Maids: 5 Victorian boxing sensations you need to know about.

In a white hexagonal frame, there is a black and white image of a playground, with a young boy on a white rocking horse. The background is green

Swings and roundabouts: a history of Britain's playgrounds.

The swordplay’s the thing: Henry VIII's Masters of Defence and the thrilling world of 16th-century fencing.

A boxing match in A Thousand Blows alongside an illustration of a Victorian boxing ring

A Thousand Blows: the real history behind the Victorian boxing drama

Sport's strangest tales.

Gladiators do battle in a c320 AD mosaic, housed in the Borghese Gallery in Rome

Blood, guts and spectacle: 6 shocking events from the history of ancient Roman gladiators.

Victorian cricket. (Photo by Getty Images)

Cricket, cocaine and cocoa houses: 5 ways Victorians spent their free time.

Video podcastCocaine: a Victorian sensation.

A 14th-century depiction of a lady and youth playing a game of draughts (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

War and pieces: 5 games from history that were about much more than fun.

Illustration of the Circus Maximus

Fast, dangerous and bloody: inside the Circus Maximus, the home of Roman chariot racing

The England football team badge, showing three lions on a field of ten Tudor roses

Q&AWhy are there three lions on the shirts of the English football team?

A composite image of athlete Gertrude Ederle and actor Daisy Ridley

Gertrude Ederle: the first woman to swim the English Channel

A photo a two men riding horses, all dressed in jousting gear.

My life in historyJouster at the Royal Armouries.

An 1891 rugby match between England and Scotland

When was the first international rugby match, and who played in it?

Video podcastThe long-distance walking craze that fascinated Victorians.

Peking to Paris: the world’s first great motor race.

Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi is held aloft by his team after clinching a division title in 1960.

A brief history of American football and the Super Bowl

Video podcastBritain's long love affair with sport.

Britain's long love affair with sport.

The real Boys in the Boat during the Poughkeepsie Regatta

The Boys in the Boat: the real history behind George Clooney's underdog sports movie

(Illustration by Hugh Cowling for BBC History Magazine)

Sportswashing: have nations always used sport to launder their reputations?.

c1880, the Paris rugby team.

When Vichy France banned rugby

An illustration titled 'The first match of the British Ladies Football Club'

A brief history of women’s football: from Mary, Queen of Scots to the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Alice Marble in the 'Daily News' colour studio.

Alice MarbleThe tennis champion with multiple lives

Gussie Moran playing tennis with her lace knickers on show at the 1949 Wimbledon Championships.

10 scandalous moments in Wimbledon’s history.

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, born the son of a humble yak farmer, pictured around the time of his Everest triumph of 1953 (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Tenzing NorgayThe Sherpa who first conquered the world's highest mountain.

A photograph of Tenzing Norgay (left) and Edmund Hillary, sharing a smile in 1953, shortly after scaling Everest.

EverestThe story of the race to the top of the world.

A 1577 portrait of Arbella Stuart, great- great-granddaughter of Henry VII, as a toddler clutching a doll

What were the games and pastimes enjoyed by Tudor children?.

Kathrine Swizter.

Kathrine SwitzerThe shocking image from Boston Marathon in 1967.

How women were excluded from sport – and fought back.