Illustration of strange creatures

Weird and wonderful history

James Sadler: From pastry cook to first English aeronaut. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

6 strange newspaper stories that shocked Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Festive QI facts: 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about the history of Christmas

Corner shops and Russian ballet. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

First World War

What is the origin of the phrase 'to blow smoke up someone's arse'?

BBC History Magazine

Who was the first ever teenage heartthrob?

Accidental explosions: gunpowder in Tudor and Stuart London. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Medieval Albigensians: Bath’s reincarnated heretics. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Holocaust landscapes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What are the historical origins of darts?

History on film: London is smothered by a dangerous smog

BBC History Magazine

Horrible Histories Live on Stage: an interview with creator Neal Foster

Forgotten science: 7 of the strangest scientific theories in history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Full-Length Portrait of King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger

Q&AHow big was Henry VIII’s codpiece?

The history of the suntan

Mompesson House, which has sinister connections with a ghost known as the Demon Drummer. (Clare Hargreaves/The National Trust)

9 haunted historic houses

7 unusual historical sites in Britain and Ireland

History’s most fascinating muses. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Behind the scenes of Suzannah Lipscomb’s 'Hidden Killers of the Post-War Home'

The battle of Jutland and 1950s domestic dangers. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A combo picture of two images taken 13 August 2002 at Cairo Museum shows a foot of a mummy missing its big toe and beside it a prosthetic toe of leather and wood to replace the amputated real one. (Photo by Marwan Naamani/AFP/Getty Images)

Q&AHow long have people used prosthetic limbs?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mary, Queen of Scots is executed © Getty

Horrible Histories author reveals 10 ways to die in Elizabethan England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

German astronomer Johannes Kepler c1620. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

The astronomer and the witch: Johannes Kepler’s fight to save his mother from execution

Monopoly maps: the history of MI9’s secret Second World War escape programme. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Roman garden at the House of the Golden Cupids, Pompeii. (Linda Farrar)

A guide to ancient gardening. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A giant leap for mankind: William Harvey reveals the circulation of the blood

The Romanovs and King Arthur. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A brief history of camouflage

5 hidden killers of the Victorian home. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Postwar Germany and medieval CSI. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.