Hocktide was a medieval festival that used to involve tying people up to raise money for the church; today, its modern ...

The tragic case of Margaret Fernseed reveals how early modern Britain treated women who killed not as criminals, but as ...

Did JFK’s extra-marital affairs risk national security? While some might argue that a president’s private life is irrelevant ...

To mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Bletchley Park’s research historian, Dr David Kenyon, reveals how staff reacted to ...

When British troops went to seize arms stockpiled by American colonists at Concord, Massachusetts, they could have had little ...

From a shagpile in the shower to gas-fuelled irons, Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan lifts the lid on Britain’s strangest domestic ...

While circumcision was common in many ancient cultures, the Romans considered it undesirable. In certain parts of the Empire, ...

Gordon Cummins was a seemingly ordinary RAF airman. But amid the darkness of blackout-era London he became one of the city’s ...

From the death (or more rarely, resignation) of a pope to the famous white smoke drifting out of a Sistine Chapel chimney, the centuries-old process of electing a new pope is defined by ritual and ...

“One can hardly imagine a human being in a more degraded and brutalised condition than that in which I found this female.” The woman, Anna Stone, had been found naked, filthy and chained with several ...

Which countries were involved? The Second World War involved almost every part of the world. But the key players were the Axis powers on one side (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and on the other side the ...