Photo of Mabel Capper and Patricia Woodlock advertising a meeting, Manchester, Lancashire, July 1908

Women's history

A portrait of Isabella I of Castile. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

Isabella I of Castile: Europe’s greatest queen?

Nicola Tallis photographed by David Hampton in October 2019

Nicola Tallis on Margaret Beaufort, mother of the Tudors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mary I: the forgotten trailblazer

Historian Nichola Tallis

“Margaret Beaufort wielded enormous power. She was a queen in all but name”: Nicola Tallis on the mother of the Tudors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A contemporary portrait of scientist Ada Lovelace

History heroKonnie Huq chooses Ada Lovelace (1815–52)

Queen of hearts: When Catherine's husband Tsar Peter III alienated his people, they instead turned to his wife, and she was proclaimed the rightful ruler.

General Early Modern

Catherine the Great: your guide to the famed Empress of Russia

Catherine the Great: fact and fiction. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Suzannah Lipscomb on women’s lives in Reformation France. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The daughter and great-niece of Henry VIII respectively, Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots didn't feel strong family ties when it came to their relationship. (Photo by Getty Images)

Queens at war: Elizabeth I vs Mary, Queen of Scots

The portrait of Queen Elizabeth I known as the Ditchley portrait

What did Queen Elizabeth I really look like at 60?

History heroJulia Bradbury chooses Amelia Earhart (1897–1937). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A young girl in an ancient Roman fresco

Q&AWere girls educated in ancient Rome?

A 16th-century portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Mary, Queen of Scots: the real history behind the film

Statue of Lady Godiva

Q&ADid Lady Godiva ride naked in Coventry?

Ladies-in-waiting

General History

Q&AWhat did a lady-in-waiting actually do?

Mary, Queen of Scots and her ladies-in-waiting. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Mary, Queen of Scots: what happened to her ladies-in-waiting?

In 1358, women finally gained full knightly acceptance in England when they began to be admitted to chivalric orders. (Photo by Eugene Antonov/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Q&ACould a woman become a knight in medieval times?

History heroMargaret Hodge chooses Katharine Graham (1917–2001). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Da Vinci's Mona Lisa portrait

Q&AWho was the Mona Lisa?

A late 19th or early 20th-century painting entitled 'Mother and Child'. As fertility rates fell, sentimental idealisations of mothers and babies developed. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The motherhood revolution: how the great fertility decline affected the lives of women

Literary women through the ages: Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Brontë all enjoyed female friendships which enriched their writing, say Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. (Getty Images)

From Austen & Brontë to Woolf: literature’s forgotten female friendships

Ruth Ellis and her friend Desmond Cussen, who supplied the gun with which she shot David Blakely. (Photo by Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

Ruth Ellis and the hanging that rocked a nation

England Women's World Cup squad, Mexico, 1971

The 1971 Women's World Cup: game changers?

Wrens worked as code-breakers at Bletchley Park.

Second World War

Female codebreakers: the women of Bletchley Park

The women of Bletchley Park. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of the romantic novelist Jane Austen. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The real reason Jane Austen never married

A history of women’s football in Scotland

Lucrezia Borgia with her father Pope Alexander VI

Lucrezia Borgia: is her bad reputation deserved?

Rachel Reeves on women who changed politics. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

1960s model. (Photo by Alamy)

Women in the 1960s. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.