History Revealed

With a vast empire that stretched from modern-day Argentina to southern Colombia, the Inca civilisation flourished for more than a hundred years before its 16th-century downfall at the hands of Spanish conquistadors. For this month's Essential Guide,

When it comes to stomach-turning experiences, nothing beats a spin on a Rotor. Designed and patented by the German engineer Ernst Hoffmeister in 1948, the ride became a staple of fairgrounds across Europe and North America, with one even erected in B

As many as 30 exquisitely carved stones – just a few millimetres in diameter –have been discovered at a site near Hadrian's Wall in Carlisle. Known as intaglios, they are believed to date from the late second eentmy to the third century AD, and were

CASE #008 THE MURDER OF ‘MADAME X’ On the evening of 4 February 1929, Kate Jackson returned home from a trip to the cinema with her neighbour, Olive Dimick. Shortly after they said goodnight, Olive heard a scream and, rushing back, found a bloody Kat

In the late 19th century, rising anti-Chinese prejudice paved the way for one of the most controversial laws in US history. Danny Bird explains how the legislation was passed and why its legacy is still felt today The Chinese Exclusion Act was a fede

Contrary to popular belief, there is no common ancestral or genetic heritage linking the peoples of Scotland. The country was originally a patchwork quilt of various tribes who certainly never thought of themselves as ‘Scottish’. Their allegiance was

When it comes to telling the history of pre-Columbian Peru, there has traditionally been just one empire that has dominated the headlines. That is, of course, the Inca. But that mighty imperium on South America's western seaboard would reach its zeni

The Inca people hailed from a mountainous area of the central Andes. The civilisation flourished in this lofty landscape, finding ways to make the most of its resources and overcome its challenges. Maize was grown in the valley bottoms and irrigated

Rather than writing on paper or clay tablets, the Inca stored information through a sequence of knots on strings known as a khipu. The system of numbers used on Inca khipus has been deciphered as following a base ten system (as used in the Quechua la

The Inca were forever looking skywards. Indeed, cosmology was the guiding framework for the way they understood the workings of the world down on the land. Not only did the name of the empire's capital, Cuzco, mean ‘navel of the earth’, but the succe

Cuzco was the homeland, capital and religious centre of the Inca empire. Pedro Sancho, one of the first Spaniards to enter the city, described it as “where the lords of this land have their residence; it is so large and so beautiful that it would be

Six fascinating stats about the world-famous Inca city 1983 The year Machu Picchu was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site 135 The number of human remains found at the site →2,430 Machu Picchu's elevation above sea level, in metres 300-1,000 The cit

When, in the spring of 1526, Francisco Pizarro's boot first made contact with Inca soil, he could have had no idea about the vastness of the empire he had just landed on, nor the lead part he would play in its downfall. The Spanish conquistador and h

“That's the USS Indianapolis,“ mumbles Quint as he points to a scar on his arm; a tattoo he had removed a long time ago. The very name stops Hooper's laughter. The jovial mood is lost and the men's drunken, one-upping exchange of stories about their

Since his unexpected victory at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, Henry V's fortunes had been transformed. From being a monarch in fear of being deposed by those closest to him, within a handful of years he was heir to the French throne. His successio

HISTORY'S GREATEST CONUNDRUMS AND MYSTERIES SOLVED SHORT ANSWER Hippocrates gets the credit for making sure the four humours were no joke for two millennia LONG ANSWER For well over 2,000 years, a foundational belief of western medicine was that the

When cousins Frances Griffiths (above) and Elsie Wright (opposite page and right) produced photos of themselves seemingly interacting with sprites, gnomes and fairies, they achieved overnight notoriety and sparked widespread debate. The validity of t

BOOK OF THE MONTH By Alice Loxton Icon Books, £25, hardback, 416 pages The Georgian penchant for satire and salaciousness, for exposing the corruption and depravity behind those powdered exteriors, is explored in this vibrant book. It focuses on the

ONE TO WATCH Pilgrimage / BBC Two, starts Friday 7 April The Chapel of the Apparitions in Cova da Iria, part of the Sanctuary of Fátima, was built to mark the spot where, in 1917, three Portuguese shepherd children claimed to have seen apparitions of

MUST SEE More than 100 items from the collection of Lancashire antiquarian Henry Blundell will be brought together for the first time in this new exhibition at Liverpool's World Museum, devoted to the deities of Greece and Rome. Packed with immersive