March 15th, 44 BC: Gaius Julius Caesar is stabbed to death. Idibus Martiis (‘the Ides of March’, 44 BC) should have been an unremarkable...

February 16th, 1923: One hundred years ago today Egyptologist Howard Carter unseals Tutankhamun’s tomb. Despite the builders’ best...

February 4th, 1555: John Rogers becomes the first Protestant martyr to be burnt at the stake in Queen Mary I’s persecutions. Formerly an...

January 22nd, 1879: The attempt to extend British colonial influence into Zululand is met with fierce resistance as Zulu warriors rout...

‘Blitzkrieg’ is a compound of two German words whose literal translation means ‘lightning war’ [1]. Military historians have defined...

It seems nobody knows for certain why the King’s Body Guard of the Yeoman of the Guard are called ‘Beefeaters’. Over the years various...

The RMS Titanic, operated by the White Star Line, sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15th, 1912 after striking an iceberg during...

Grain and legumes Peas and beans, which made up a very large part of the diet of the Mediæval poor, were still treated as a staple food,...

In the first year of the 20th century Queen Victoria’s 64 year reign came to an end with her death on January 22nd, 1901. She was...

We have an image that school days in Victorian Britain were strict and corporal punishment rife. Daily life in the elementary school,...

November 22nd, 1718: On This Day probably the most notorious pirate, Edward Teach, known as ‘Blackbeard’, met his demise. Towards the end...

The Sun never sets When Victoria succeeded to the throne in 1837, Britain was already a global maritime trading power. From the late...

The ‘Scold’s Bridle’, sometimes known as ‘The Gossip’s Bridle’, was a punishment used officially and unofficially in England to...

The Battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18th, 1815, saw the final defeat and exile of Napoleon Bonaparte. Out of a common fear of...

Possibly the most significant year in English history, 1066, saw the end of Anglo-Saxon England and start of the reigns of first the...

One of the most curious objects in the Royal Armouries collection is the ‘horned helmet’, a bizarre headpiece commissioned in AD 1511 by...

On this day, in the early hours of October 12th, 1915, a British national, still wearing her nurses’ uniform, was led out into a yard at...

Asked to imagine or indeed to portray a pirate, most people undoubtedly will have a certain look in mind. Who’s now thinking of Johnny...

Sugar is one of the world’s oldest documented commodities, and at one time it was so valuable that people kept it safe under lock and key...

On August 17th, 2022 the Trimontium Trust (@TrimontiumTrust) reminded Twitter users that Queen Cleopatra of Egypt committed suicide on...