December 2011 cover

December 2011

Articles from the December 2011 issue of BBC History Magazine

Queen Victoria pictured c1862 during her period of mourning

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Prince Albert: the death that rocked the monarchy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An illustration of Nikephoros II. (Photo by INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo)

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A big day in history: the all-conquering Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II loses his head. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from an early 15th-century manuscript of the poem ‘De Regimine Principum’ by Thomas Hoccleve. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

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The LibraryChaucer and the idea of Englishness. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A c15th-century vellum shows the Squire from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. For Adam Nicolson, the essence of the gentry was “government-through-networking”. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

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Stories of the gentry. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the leader of a network of French resistance agents during the Second World War. (Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

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My history hero: Marie-Madeleine Fourcade (1909–89). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Angela Burdett-Coutts, an English philanthropist who supported a wide variety of charitable causes assisting the church, the poor and the hungry. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch/Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images)

General Modern

Philanthropy: the root of all good

Guy Gibson (centre) with members of his squadron. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

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The triumph of the Dambusters. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration by Jonty Clark

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Ye olde travel guide: Pompeii 79 Ad. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III. Famous for being the location of the ‘Great Escape’, it was home to Ron Last for ten months. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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The long road home. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An 1860s coloured engraving of Lake Victoria’s outflow at the Ripon Falls, which John Speke discovered in 1862 and correctly declared to be the source of the Nile. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

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Explorers of the Nile. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.