If your donkey fell ill in ancient Mesopotamia, the solution wasn’t to summon a vet: it was to call an exorcist. It was a lucrative career path that began with sick animals, but could culminate at a ...

In the summer of 1488, King James III of Scotland was fleeing a battlefield. His army had collapsed at the battle of Sauchieburn, and his teenage son, the future James IV, had joined the rebel nobles ...

You’re living in medieval England and just celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter. The sun is getting warmer, and the fields are getting greener. So, that must mean it’s time for ...

In the summer of 1607, a man named Anthony Fernseed was found dead in a field – his throat slit. Yet when his wife, Margaret, was informed of his death, she barely seemed bothered at all. “She [was] ...

When Germany’s surrender was declared on 8 May 1945, the news came as a surprise to many of the staff working at Bletchley Park. Although they knew the end of the European war was near, few predicted ...

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It’s a century since the publication of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a book about which it may seem there’s not much left to say. Not true, suggests writer Sarah Churchwell: Gatsby, often ...