Letters from the front line

The medieval approach to sustainability was entirely different to ours today. In a world where the modern definition of 'waste' didn't even exist, the repair market boomed and building materials were ...

14 Nov 202426min

In the spring of 1540 Thomas Cromwell was at the height of his power, but just a few months later he found himself at the scaffold on Tower Hill preparing to be executed for treason and heresy. What h...

13 Nov 202437min

Joseph McCarthy's infamous crusade in the 1950s whipped up a frenzy of anti-communist sentiment across America – and wrecked the reputations of scores of people accused of harbouring sympathies for th...

12 Nov 202438min

How did gladiators supercharge the rise of Julius Caesar? What can we learn about arena fighters from the petrified remains at Pompeii? And why did gladiatorial bouts get banned there for a whole deca...

11 Nov 202437min

From their remote Yorkshire parsonage, sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë penned stories that would capture the imaginations of generations of readers. But how popular were books such as Jane Ey...

10 Nov 202448min

On 7 November, 1974, nanny Sandra Rivett was found murdered in the affluent London neighbourhood of Belgravia. The prime suspect? The father of her young charges, Lord Lucan. But before the aristocrat...

8 Nov 202434min

Henry V only had a short reign, but his legacy looms large over the medieval landscape. Remembered as a heroic warrior king, who bested the French at Harfleur then marched his forces to victory at Agi...

7 Nov 202448min

In June 1944 Allied armies landed in force in northern France, and the liberation of western Europe began. But, the battle that really sealed Hitler's fate was taking place in the east, as the Red Arm...

6 Nov 202438min