After becoming the first human to orbit Earth, Yuri Gagarin was transformed into a global celebrity and sent around the world as the smiling face of Soviet power. But what did the cosmonaut make of ...

More than two centuries before Richard III would be accused of killing his own nephews, the Princes in the Tower, another ...

Edward Colston gave millions in today's money to schools, almshouses and charitable causes, carefully crafting an image of ...

Behaving well as a host or visitor wasn’t just a matter of etiquette for the ancient Greeks – it was a sacred duty. Hilary Mitchell explores xenia, the ancient code of hospitality at the heart of Chri ...

The people of ancient Rome lived in a wide range of housing, from grand urban mansions to crowded flats and makeshift dwellings attached to shops. Where and how someone lived depended on geography, ...

When Saladin sat down to supper in the spring of 1175, he was already one of the most significant figures in the Islamic world. The former commander of the Fatimid armies in Egypt had, within a decade ...

Few historical figures have been discussed and debated as much as Adolf Hitler. We have a wealth of primary source material available to us about his life, including his autobiographical manifesto ...

To the rest of the world, Göring often appeared as the public face of Nazi Germany during the 1930s as an example of the regime’s ambition and arrogance. And within Nazi Germany, he was Hitler’s ...

Duke William of Normandy, who would become known as William the Conqueror, arguably changed the course of English history more profoundly than any ruler before or since. Despite beginning life as a ...

In 14th-century England, the prevailing experience wasn’t of medieval splendour, of chivalric knights, illuminated manuscripts and mighty monarchs. From the early 1300s to the century’s close, England ...

Witty, waspish and armed with a pen as sharp as her cheekbones, Nancy Mitford – the eldest of the Mitford sisters – was the family’s satirist-in-chief and arguably its most enduring literary star. As ...

It’s not too often that medieval historians grab national headlines, but when you get an Oxford academic counting penises in a world-famous embroidery, you’re sure to arouse media attention. On ...