Most of British history sat in a chapter you never reached. We've split the lot into eight ages of mischief, mayhem and majesty, every one with the hidden corners, the larger-than-life characters and the shocking true stories your textbook quietly skipped.
Straight roads, hot baths, and the original British complaint about the weather.
Roman soldiers were paid in salt, and yes, that's where 'salary' comes from.
Raiders, traders, and frankly excellent hair-care enthusiasts.
Vikings carved graffiti inside a 5,000-year-old tomb at Maeshowe in Orkney.
Knights, plagues, and a frankly suspicious amount of pottage.
Medieval scribes drew killer snails fighting knights in the margins of holy books.
Six wives, two religions, and one extremely smelly king.
Henry VIII employed a 'Groom of the Stool', yes, for exactly what you think.
Steam, soot, sideburns and stiff upper lips.
Victorians used arsenic in wallpaper. Pretty green. Less-pretty hallucinations.
Trenches, tin hats, and the world turned upside-down.
The first tank in battle was nicknamed 'Mother'. Mother weighed 28 tons.
Evacuees, spitfires, spam fritters and unsinkable spirit.
Some 3.5 million Brits were evacuated, many wearing nothing but a label.
Mini-skirts, motorways, moon landings and Marmite.
Britain's first traffic light (1868) literally exploded a month after install.