In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh’s first attempt to found an English colony in the New World failed, but two years later he was keen to try again.

At the height of the Inquisition, King Philip II of Spain sent a glorious fleet against England to bring the nation back to his Church.

Shortly before the American Civil War, an attack by pro-slavery militants on the city of Lawrence prompted John Brown to try to clean up Kansas.

Two years into the American Civil War, the Union army responded to a dispiriting defeat at Chancellorsville with a decisive and historic victory at Gettysburg.

The Battle of Lewes in 1263 took place just a few miles from the Battle of Hastings two centuries before it, and was arguably as important.

When King Henry III’s barons turned up to his council wearing full armour, he realised he had to mend his ways.