Scholar, spy, diplomat and supreme propagandist for Elizabethan sea power, Richard Hakluyt's accounts of famed explorers mythologised a nation growing rapidly aware of the size and strangeness of the world - and determined to dominate it.

Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbours began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were 'thunder'. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the ...

At the age of 23, Brian Wood was thrust into the front line in Iraq, in the infamous Battle of Danny Boy. Ambushed, he led a charge across open ground with insurgents firing at just five soldiers. On his return, he was awarded the Military Cross. But Brian's story had only just begun. Struggling ...

Embark upon a lavish visual journey through ancient Greece - from its rise and fall to its lasting legacy throughout the Western world. Spanning more than 3000 years, 'Ancient Greece' explores the tumultuous history of this glorious empire in vivid detail - from its Minoan and Mycenaean origins t...

In 1923, four short years since the end of the First World War, and after the passing of the Act which gave all men the vote, an inconclusive election result and the prospect of a constitutional crisis opened the door for a radically different sort of government: men from working-class background...

Between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment, Europe lived through an era known as the Age of Reason. This was a period which saw advances in areas such as art, science, philosophy, political theory and economics. However, all this was achieved against a background of ext...

Europe's internal borders have rarely been 'natural'; they have more often been created by accident or force. Successive powers have redrawn the map of our continent, with varying degrees of success: the fingerprints of Napoleon, Alexander I, Castlereagh, Napoleon III and Bismarck are all there, ...