Torture: Did you mean...?

Ragnar Lothbrok (Old Norse Ragnarr Loðbrók, also anglicised as Ragnar Lodbrok), whose epithet means 'Hairy-breeches' or 'Shaggy-breeches', was a legendary Viking king, with Old Norse sagas, poetry, and medieval Latin sources telling of his...

Ivar the Boneless (Old Norse Ívarr hinn Beinlausi) is known from Old Norse and medieval Latin sources as the son of the legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, in these stories raiding alongside his father and brothers and becoming the ruler...

The Sturmabteilung (SA or Storm Detachment), popularly known as the Brownshirts for their uniform, was the paramilitary arm of the German Nazi party led by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945). The SA was formed in 1921 and led most famously by Ernst...

The Tower of London is a castle located in London alongside the River Thames which was first built by William the Conqueror from c. 1077 and significantly added to over the centuries. Often referred to in England as simply 'the Tower', it...

The Arapaho are a North American Native nation originally from the Red River Valley in modern-day Manitoba, Canada, and Minnesota, USA. They migrated south in the early 18th century and established themselves in modern-day Colorado, Montana...

Vitellius was Roman emperor from April to December 69 CE. Vitellius was the third of the four emperors who ruled the Roman Empire in the year 69 CE. One of his predecessors, Galba, who had replaced the fallen Emperor Nero, was murdered by...

A device used by the Nazi Gestapo secret police to crush the fingers of detainees. (Imperial War Museums)

Catherine II of Russia (Catherine the Great) was the empress regent of Russia from 1762 to 1796. During the mid-18th century, Russia was still regarded as culturally behind compared to Western European countries. However, during her reign...

To this day the ancient Romans remain infamous for their dramatic use of spectacle and other forms of entertainment. A lesser known variation of Roman spectacle is the mythological re-enactments that took place during the ludi meridiani (midday...

On the evening of 30 May 1593, the sounds of a heated argument could be heard emanating from a boarding house in Deptford, a district of London on the south bank of the River Thames. Two of the boarders were quarreling over which of them...