The destruction of Pompeii is one of antiquity’s most famous disasters, but its exact date remains fiercely debated. From ...

From the Black Death to the French Revolution, music has long been affected by the upheavals of history. Rebecca Franks ...

We often think of Cleopatra in two-dimensional terms – as a bewitching beauty who used her charm to maintain power. But, in this podcast series, Matt Elton is joined by Professor Islam Issa to paint a ...

One of the medieval world’s greatest surviving treasures will go on display in London in September 2026. David Musgrove ...

British museums still hold hundreds of precious Asante treasures looted during 19th century colonial wars. Historian Barnaby ...

Far from living in constant filth, medieval people developed routines, regulations and even public infrastructure to manage ...

While in theory, a pope couldn’t be removed during the Middle Ages, late medieval Europe still found ways to challenge, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Aethelred II – best known by the epithet, ‘the Unready’ – was king of the English for two periods, from AD 978 to 1013, and a brief second spell from 1014 to 1016. His combined reign of nearly 38 ...

Sometimes referred to as one of history’s first recorded serial killers, Gilles de Rais, the Baron of Retz, was executed in October 1440 for the murders of at least 140 children. Whether he was ...