History
Empires, emperors and the stories behind dates everyone half-remembers.
- Holy Roman Emperors: From Charlemagne to Francis II
Who the Holy Roman Emperors were, how they were elected and crowned, the key rulers from 800 to 1806, and why the Empire was 'neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire'.
- The Christmas Truce of 1914: What Really Happened
How British and German soldiers stopped fighting on the Western Front at Christmas 1914, what the evidence says about the football matches, and why it was never repeated on the same scale.
- The Largest Empires in History, by Peak Land Area
The British, Mongol and Russian empires and the rest of the list: peak areas, dates, where the estimates come from and why the ranking is less precise than it looks.
- Why Did the Roman Empire Fall? 476, the Debate and the Half That Survived
What happened in AD 476, the long list of events that led up to it, why historians still argue about the causes, and why the eastern half of the Roman Empire lasted until 1453.
- Why Is Armistice Day on 11 November? The Eleventh Hour, the Silence and the Poppy
Why 11 November marks the end of the First World War, what happened in the railway carriage at Compiègne, where the two minutes' silence and the red poppy come from, and how Armistice Day became Veterans Day.
- Why Is Bonfire Night on 5 November? The Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes and the Guy
What the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 planned, how a letter and a midnight search stopped it, what happened to Guy Fawkes and the other plotters, and how a day of thanksgiving became Bonfire Night, with its effigies, rhymes and the search of Parliament's cellars.
