Menu Close

Articles on History

Displaying 1 - 20 of 1501 articles

(L-R) The Princess of Wales on the cover of Tatler, Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, and a detail of Vices Overlook’d in the New Proclamation by James Gillray. Hannah Uzor/Tatler, Royal Collection Trust / National Portrait Gallery. Montage created with Canva

Five controversial historical royal portraits – from drunken kings to sexy mermaids

British monarchs have grappled with issues of representation, accuracy and flattery in portraits since the Middle Ages.
A Mona Lisa painting from the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci, held in the collection of the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. Collection of the Museo del Prado

Who really was Mona Lisa? More than 500 years on, there’s good reason to think we got it wrong

The Mona Lisa has traditionally been associated with Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant. But there’s plenty of evidence pointing to a different identity.
The spinning wheel game ‘EO’ became popular after statutes banned gambling with devices featuring ‘numbers or figures.’ Heritage Art/Getty Images

How the 18th-century ‘probability revolution’ fueled the casino gambling craze

Early writers on probability had explained how the ‘house advantage’ didn’t need to be large for a gambling enterprise to profit enormously. But gamblers and gambling operators were slow to catch on.
Andrea Mantegna, Minerva (Athena) expelling Vices from the Garden of Virtue, from the Studiolo of Isabella d'Este, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua (c. 1499–1502). Louvre Museum/Wikimedia Commons

Influence, authority and power: how elite women played a crucial role in the Italian Wars of the 16th century

Women’s participation in warfare is not a recent phenomenon. Women played many roles in the Italian Wars, which engulfed Europe between 1494 and 1559.
Wolfilser/Shutterstock

Business basics: where did money come from?

The theory that money emerged naturally encourages people to believe free markets are natural systems in which governments only interfere. But this thinking is flawed.
The recreated head of Shanidar Z, made by the Kennis brothers for the Netflix documentary ‘Secrets of the Neanderthals’ based on 3D scans of the reconstructed skull. BBC Studios/Jamie Simonds

The reconstruction of a 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman’s face makes her look quite friendly – there’s a problem with that

Scientists can’t yet tell how soft tissue overlayed bones, so this reconstruction is inevitably based on artistic licence.

Top contributors

More