Feature

Early Christianity brought new opportunities for Roman and Byzantine women – it also brought new reasons to vilify them.

How did Uyghur chieftain Yolbars Khan come to be buried in a Chinese Nationalist grave in Taipei? The answer reveals much about China’s violent relationship with its most western province.

In late 16th-century France, a powerful noblewoman stood up to soldiers’ violence during the Wars of Religion. Using her wealth and connections she was able to defend her interests in court.

There is an enduring obsession with understanding the body and mind of Henry VIII, but how sound are diagnoses past and present – and do we need them?

In 1954 a new agency was founded: the KGB. While less violent and arbitrary than what it replaced, its insidious reach soon permeated Soviet society.

In the age of enlightenment, the public developed a taste for sheer spectacle. Suitably awe-inspiring, dazzling versions of the world’s most famous volcano, Vesuvius, could soon be found across Europe and North America.

In the late 19th century a new trend captured the Czech people –gymnastics. But sokol was more than just exercise: a healthy body was a healthy nation and the Czechs wanted independence.

Soldiers on the front line in France and Flanders saw their fight as the only legitimate one. But in Britain, the mobilisation of the domestic workforce was integral to winning the First World War.

As Anglo-Saxon England faced conquests and apocalypse, Archbishop Wulfstan saw hope for the kingdom in a radical restructuring of society.

Fifty years separate the Boston Tea Party and the Monroe Doctrine. How did a group of British colonies become a self-proclaimed protector of continents within half a century?