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Celebrations have begun around the country to mark the Queen's 90th birthday. Crowds lined the streets in Windsor as the monarch took part in a walkabout, after royal gun salutes were fired from each of the UK's capital cities. The Prince of Wales recorded a special radio broadcast for...

Comedian Victoria Wood has died aged 62 after "a short but brave" battle with cancer. "The multi Bafta award-winning writer, director, actor and comedian died peacefully at her north London home with family this morning," her publicist Neil Reading said. "The family ask for privacy at this...

Banknotes are changing - with the look and feel of the cash in our pockets going through significant changes in the coming years. Yet, this is still simply the latest development in the way money has been made over many centuries. Ben Alsop, curator of the Citi Money Gallery at the...

It may seem a peculiarly 21st Century preoccupation, but people in Shakespeare's England were also obsessed with food, writes Dr Joan Fitzpatrick. Shakespeare: The strange way people looked at food in the 16th Century Dr Joan Fitzpatrick BBC News Magazine 20 April 2016 It may seem a...

A new portrait has been released of four generations of the Royal Family on the eve of Her Majesty's 90th birthday. The portrait, which was taken in the White Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace in the summer of 2015, shows Queen Elizabeth II with her three immediate heirs - her son Prince...

The third volume in Terry Deary's witty history series for adults, Dangerous Days in Elizabethan England explodes the myths that he believes permeate our understanding of the age of ‘Good Queen Bess’. Here, writing for History Extra, Deary reveals 10 of the gravest dangers faced by...

Salisbury Plain may be best known for Stonehenge, but the chalk plateau hides other secrets too. Archaeologists have unearthed an Anglo Saxon cemetery of about 150 graves holding beautiful grave goods, including an intricate comb, jewellery, a 'sewing box' and intriguing shells in the...

Richard Littlejohn on the big stories of the last few days: the EU referendum (of course); black soldiers getting frostbite; novels and TV shows getting PC makeovers; Walker's liquorice toffee; and Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Richard III. Why I'd rather live under Labour than stay in...

Sadiq khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, is the favourite to succeed Boris Johnson as Mayor of London on 5th May. However, recent stories about his dealings with Islamic extremists have raised doubts about his suitability as mayor... With friends like this, is Sadiq Khan fit to run London...

He was the 15th century king who stole the throne of England, is blamed for the disappearance of his nephews and was left languishing under a car park in Leicester for hundreds of years. Now Richard III's remains have been turned into modern art. A series of portraits based on X-ray images...

No EU referendum story has offered quite so much pleasure as this one, which I trust will provide you with the same 10 minutes of helpless hilarity that it gave me. The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign (now known as BSE, previously the name for the human form of mad cow disease)...

An "elaborate" Roman villa has been unearthed by chance by a homeowner laying electric cables in his garden in Wiltshire. It was discovered by rug designer Luke Irwin as he was carrying out some work at his farmhouse so that his children could play table tennis in an old barn. He...

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have sat together on the bench at the Taj Mahal in India where Diana, Princess of Wales, was pictured 24 years ago. Prince William and Catherine posed at the mausoleum in Agra yesterday on the final day of their tour of India and Bhutan. William's mother...

The Eurovision Song Contest is a magnet for weird and wonderful acts, from the fabulous to the frightening. But few can be stranger than the latest entry - Ivan, the 'rock star' from Belarus who sings naked surrounded by a pack of wild wolves. The 21-year-old, who begins his song with a...

An argument you sometimes hear from those sitting on the Brence (the Brexit fence) is that it’s a pity the EU couldn’t have stayed the same as it was when we first joined it in 1973. Back then, say the Brence-sitters, it was a trading bloc with only nine members, which made sense. Greece...

It's been reported that 18 athletes who competed in the 2012 London Olympics have died since the Games. French-language media have begun talking about a "curse", but is there any justification for this? Is there a London 2012 Olympics 'curse'? By Laura Gray BBC News...

Boris Johnson has accused US President Barack Obama of "hypocrisy" over his support for the UK remaining in the EU. The London mayor, who backs EU exit, told the BBC the Americans "wouldn't dream of sharing [their] sovereignty" as the UK had done. The US president is expected to repeat his...

A new radio series exploring 900 years of student life begins on BBC Radio 4 on Monday. Here, BBC History Magazine's Ellie Cawthorne, who presents the series, Scenes from Student Life, brings you some lesser-known facts about the history of British students… The history of student life: 7...