Surgeons trying to eliminate pain eventually arrived at anaesthesia – but not before a contest with older, more unusual therapies. Why was mesmerism so magnetic?

This Land of Promise: A History of Refugees and Exiles in Britain by Matthew Lockwood and Multicultural Britain: A People’s History by Kieran Connell foreground the castaways in our island story.

On 9 March 1522 the Swiss Reformation began with an ‘ostentatious eating of sausages.’

The monks of Peterborough told strange tales of the Wild Hunt. Were they ghostly apparitions or wishful thinking?

Rome’s first theatre was an enormous spectacle intended to glorify Pompey’s successes. Was it all bread and circuses?

On 5 March 1936 the prototype Spitfire made its maiden flight. Its creator R.J. Mitchell would not live to see its finest hour.

Pre-Islamic history was once taboo in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Will the ‘rediscovery’ of an ancient people – the Nabataeans – encourage international tourism?

Friends in Youth: Choosing Sides in the English Civil War by Minoo Dinshaw views the conflict through the sad case of Bulstrode Whitelock and Edward Hyde.