In which Bettany Hughes heads for Estonia, where she visits the island of Saaremaa to see evidence the Vikings were on the move long before they attacked Lindisfarne. Plus in the capital, Tallinn, ...

The ghost of Mark Smeaton looms large in Shardlake, the Tudor murder-mystery drama now streaming on Disney+. Who was Smeaton, ...

A love story between two prisoners at the worst of the Nazis’ concentration camps? The plot of the Tattooist of Auschwitz ...

When, why and how did Neanderthals die out? This pivotal moment in human evolution is still contested by archaeologists, and ...

Tudor crime drama Shardlake features a disabled protagonist in a position of power – but what was the lot for real people ...

In 1517, a mob terrorised the streets of London and took up arms against foreigners. Why did they turn to violence? And what ...

Ask a group of people today what the 18th-century polymath Benjamin Franklin should be remembered for the most, and chances are that a variety of answers will come up. Was he primarily a man of words, ...

As well as being a printer, publisher, philosopher, inventor and Founding Father of America, Benjamin Franklin also found time to become a French fashion icon – and almost became a swimming teacher ...

William Temple Franklin may not be a household name, but he played a significant role in American history, specifically by contributing to the early United States of America’s close relationship with ...

Born George Gordon Byron on 22 January 1788, the poet – one of the famous of the Romantics – was the only son of Captain ‘Mad Jack’ Byron and Catherine Gordon, a Scottish heiress. Catherine relocated ...