History

Empires, emperors and the stories behind dates everyone half-remembers.

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  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'.

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  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.

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  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.