Ancient peoples were looking after their teeth with – admittedly unappealing – concoctions that included animal bones, herbs and, in the case of the Romans, human wee. There was no single inventor, bu ...

For no longer than 38 minutes on 27 August 1896, the one-sided Anglo-Zanzibar War was fought between the might of the British ...

A skilled and courageous frontiersman who became a politician; an outspoken and popular politician who was transformed into ...

From royals’ penchant for erotic furniture to medieval magic, test your knowledge on the history of sex… Lauren Good is the ...

In Gladiator, director Ridley Scott created a swords-and-sandals epic that was half-history and half-fiction, and that ...

It might seem astonishing that so much political energy could be consumed by what came to be known as the Petticoat Affair, which began in 1829 when members of Andrew Jackson’s cabinet and their wives ...

The earthquake that hit Lisbon in 1755 was one of the deadliest in history. The Portuguese capital was almost completely destroyed, and some estimates put the death toll at 100,000 people. Later, the ...

The future Mary I and Thomas Cromwell were diametrically opposed in every way that mattered. She was a staunch Roman Catholic; he a reformist who masterminded the destruction of the monasteries and ...

“Pretty grim”, answers Professor Sarah Richardson. “Life expectancy at birth for the average Victorian was about 42, and more than 25 per cent of children died before their fifth birthday. Disease was ...

Lauren Good is the digital content producer at HistoryExtra. She joined the team in 2022 after completing an MA in Creative Writing, and she holds a first-class degree in English and Classical Studies ...