With Jahangir sliding into more of an opium and alcohol fuelled slumber with each passing day, Nur Jahan took the... more

Nur Jahan was born on a roadside as her well-to-do parents fled from Safavid Persia for the tolerant court of... more

Börte came from a powerful nomadic tribe and in many ways her marriage to Genghis Khan set him up to... more

Sold as a slave to the great Abbasid Caliph, al-Khayzuran quickly rose to the very top of the pyramid. Through... more

The Empress Theodora is often unfairly remembered for the salacious stories that have been told about her when she was... more

Placed by her mother into a brothel when she was just a child, Theodora was born into the most brutal... more

Born in poverty at a time when the Roman Empire was in danger of cracking up and disintegrating, Helena was... more

With Julius Caesar dead, Cleopatra turned to another of Rome’s dominant figures. She became entwined with Mark Antony, the ruler... more

Born in the romantic splendour of Ptolemaic Egypt, not far from the Library of Alexandria, Cleopatra was destined for greatness.... more

In late autumn, 629 AD, Xuanzang set out for the great university of Nalanda from Chang’an. Across the desert, over... more