Michael Wood has spent much of the last two years in China filming a BBC series on the nation’s tumultuous history. Here he explores the country’s six great eras to reveal what has made its civilisation so utterly distinctive, and so fascinating, for so long... More

Ancient Rome: 6 burning questions, Dr Miles Russell answers those burning questions about Ancient Rome you were too afraid to ask... More

He is largely remembered as a bully who executed his opponents, oversaw the destruction of religious buildings and works of art, and killed off two of his six wives. But is this image wholly accurate? Here, historian Tracy Borman shares five surprising facts about the former king... More

Ancient Greek society was about a whole lot more than wrath-filled gods and mythical heroes. Here are just a few of the things the Ancient Greek did for us… More

By 1917, the British had made three different agreements with three different groups promising three different political futures for the Arab world. The Arabs insisted they still get their Arab kingdom that was promised to them through Sharif Hussein. The French (and British themselves) expected to divide up that same land among themselves. And More

Before the Arab Revolt could even begin and before Sharif Hussein could create his Arab kingdom, the British and French had other plans. In the winter of 1915-1916, two diplomats, Sir Mark Sykes of Britain and François Georges-Picot of France secretly met to decide the fate of the post-Ottoman Arab world. More

100 years ago, most Arabs were part of the Ottoman Empire/Caliphate, a large multi-ethnic state based in Istanbul. Today, a political map of the Arab world looks like a very complex jigsaw puzzle. More

Atatürk knew these secular reforms would be futile if the Turkish people could manage to rally together to oppose them. The biggest danger to this new order was the history of the Turks, which since the 900s had been intertwined with Islam. In order to distance the new generations of Turks from their past, Atatürk had to make the past unreadable More

At first, the new Turkish government seemed to inherit the role of the Ottoman government as the upholder of Islam. A new constitution drawn up by the GNA declared that Islam was the official state religion of Turkey and that all laws had to be vetted by a panel of Islamic law experts, to make sure they do not contradict the Shari’ah. More

The evolution of Turkey in the early 1900s is one of the most baffling cultural and social changes in Islamic history. In a few short years, the Ottoman Empire was brought down from within, stripped of its Islamic history, and devolved into a new secular nation known as Turkey. The consequences of this change are still being felt today throughout More

Charles II is, in my view, the wittiest monarch in English history. He was courageous, tolerant, lazy, duplicitous and pleasure-loving: his return from exile in 1660 inaugurated the most conspicuous change in manners – from extreme puritanism to unbridled licentiousness – this country has seen. But he conducted the restoration of the Stuart More

In the 1500s, when King Henry VIII became fascinated by his Arthurian heritage, such ancient ideas began to spring up again. This has ensured that the legend of King Arthur lies at the heart of the historic British Empire. More