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The Plantagenet Alliance, distant relatives of Richard III, have lost their battle in the High Court to have the last Plantagenet monarch interred in York. It means that Richard will, after all, be interred in Leicester Cathedral later this year, in the same city where he was found in 2012...

King Edward II is the English monarch who famously lost the Battle of Bannockburn against Robert the Bruce in 1314 and who was murdered for being gay - his gay relationship with Hugh Despenser alienated Edward's queen Isabella - by having a red-hot poker shoved up his anus at Berkeley Castle in...

A great British institution returns tomorrow night for its tenth series. The BBC's Springwatch has, alongside its sister series Autumnwatch, been on our screens every year since 2005 (with Winterwatch starting in 2012) and, this year, will be on every night from Monday to Thursday for the...

The world's most complete woolly mammoth has gone on display at the Natural History Museum in London. Lyuba - whose name means "love" in Russian - was just one month old and just over four feet long when she died in the vast and frozen Russian wilderness 42,000 years ago. She was discovered in...

Nottingham, Britain's ninth-largest city, is not only famous for Robin Hood and his Merry Men and its lace-making, bicycle and tobacco industries, but it's also famous for its plethora of caves. There are 544 known man-made caves throughout the city, with 100 of them only -re-discovered within...

This skull could be the first-ever recorded victim of the Battle of Hastings. Experts have revealed that it belongs to a 45-year-old man who was hacked six times with a sword to the back of his head – and could provide first-hand evidence of the brutal battle of 1066. No bones have...

The Queen yesterday visited the Royal Navy Type 23 frigate HMS Lancaster, almost 24 years to the day after Her Majesty launched her. The ship's crew welcomed the Queen - who is the symbolic Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces - onboard at Portsmouth Naval Base. The national anthem...

A metal detectorist has found a Bronze Age gold tribal necklace worth £20,000 in a field full of grazing cows in Dorset. David Spohr, an engineer, had just about given up on his search in the field near the market town of Blandford Forum in the Tarrant Valley and head back for his lunch when...

In the 1690s, Scotland tried to found a Scottish Empire on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darien in Central America. But the scheme was a massive failure and led to an impoverished Scotland unifying with its much larger and richer neighbour England. The late 17th century was a difficult...

Prince Harry has paid tribute to the "professionalism and bravery" of Estonian troops during the first day of his visit to the little Baltic state. He paid his respects to soldiers who died fighting for the country by laying a wreath at a national monument in Freedom Square in the Estonian...

The Elephant Man's mother has got a headstone on her grave in Leicester. Mary Jane Merrick's family were unable to afford a headstone for her when she died in 1873. A group dedicated to keeping her son's memory alive organised the event at Welford Road Cemetery. Her son's name, Joseph, has...

The British Isles are awash with ancient legends of ghostly black dogs. These demonic entities, also known as hellhounds, are said to roam the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland, and many are said to be harbingers of doom. Each region has its own version - In Lancashire the black...

Michael Palin is today as well-known for his televised adventures around the world as he is for being a Python. His travels since the 1980s have seen him travel from Pole to Pole, around the Pacific Rim, across the Sahara Desert, through the Himalayas and, most recently, around Brazil, a...

London-based company OwnFone has launched the world's first customisable Braille phone to give visually impaired people more independence and confidence with mobile devices. The company uses 3D printing to add personalised buttons to the front of the phone for specific contacts. The...

750 years ago today the Battle of Lewes took place, a milestone marked by the recent creation of the Battle of Lewes Tapestry, unveiled in Lewes today. The tapestry, which is similar to the Bayeux Tapestry which depicts the Battle of Hastings, took a team of 60 embroiderers two years to make...

Ale tankards and pipes used by drinkers in London over 650 years ago have been found near London Bridge. As part of the Thameslink Programme, which is extending the Thameslink rail system, which runs between Bedford and Brighton through London, from 68 stations to 100 stations, archaeologists...

Could Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who has been the Tory Mayor of London since 2008 and who is decended from King George II and King James I (VI of Scotland) and is a distant cousin of David Cameron, one day become President of the United States? He is, after all, eligible. Johnson was...

The tomb of Florence Nightingale at St St Margaret's Church in East Wellow, Hampshire, has been repaired after it was damaged in a storm. The tomb was damaged, including having a tree fall on it, during the St Valentine's Day storms. Nightingale, who nursed injured and sick British troops...

Roger Bannister was credited with being the first person to run a mile in under four minutes - but 18th Century runners are reported to have got there first. Why are they not recognised? The 18th Century four-minute mile...

The 2014 Sunday Times Rich List has showed that the number of billionaires living in Britain has topped 100 for the first time. There are 104 billionaires living in Britain. This means that Britain has more billionaires per head of population than any other country. London also has more...