What sits beneath the planet’s crust? Scientists, writers, and conspiracy theorists have all had a guess, with Hollow-Earth Theory providing surprisingly resilient.

The wartime government’s programme of deliberate smoke production was an attempt to protect Britain from the Luftwaffe; for the National Smoke Abatement Society, the decision was a disaster.

At the end of the First World War a British force under Major-General Lionel Dunsterville launched a daring campaign to cut off Ottoman oil supplies at Baku.

What makes a state? Is it its people, its borders, its government, or does it rest on recognition from international powers? Across the 19th and 20th centuries, the process by which states have been created and recognised has taken many forms.

Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s by Thant Myint-U captures the optimism and ambition of Burma’s bridge between worlds.

For most of the late 16th and early 17th century, theatre companies touring England were welcomed in provincial towns. But as tastes changed, players found themselves take second billing to moral concerns.

‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That “anarchic” and “fanatical” Poland was partitioned by its more “enlightened”, “tolerant” absolutist neighbours.’