Maps of murder across medieval England

Play 17th-century death roulette

Before modern science and medicine, death was much harder to escape. Using real mortality records from London's Dreadful Visitation–a collection of all the Bills of Mortality from 1665–this interactive game gives you an idea of what may have possibly killed you during the Great Plague. Grow your appreciation for life today as you stumble upon causes of death like “livergrown” and “drowned at St. Katharine’s by the Tower”.

A map of those accused of witchcraft across Scotland

This data visualization pinpoints where accused Scottish witches lived during the witch hunts, of which there were five waves. This map also allows viewers to see the social class of the accused and where they died and were tried. Viewers also can...

Explore the medieval world in this 14th-Century map

This virtual replica of a 14th-Century map allows viewers to see the medieval world through a Christian framework. Jerusalem is the center axle of the map, harkening back to the Bible's Old Testament, which states Jerusalem is the "centre of...

The bloody history of the true crime genre

The true crime genre appears to have crawled out of an unlocked closet between 1550 and 1700. Rising literacy rates and printing technologies during this period led to leaflets and ballads-turned-broadsides that graphically regurgitated the findings. These products often included woodcuts of the crime's "unsavory acts.". Such content was snapped up by the "artisan class and above" as poorer classes lacked the funds to fuel the hobby.

Explore a map of Medieval Europe, which was a patchwork of hundreds of competing states.

A Roman-era cemetery in York may hold the remains of gladiators

A burial ground in York, used from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE, contained around 80 skeletons of unusually tall and muscular young men. Many show fatal combat wounds, including one with a bite mark from a large predator.

English playwright Christopher Marlowe's violent and mysterious death

According to an official coroner’s report, in 1593 a heated argument over payment for supper escalated into a physical struggle, during which Marlowe wounded a man named Ingram Frizer, who then fatally stabbed Marlowe above the right eye. Though we still don't have a definitive explanation for why Marlowe was killed, the true motive continues to be debated, with suspicions surrounding the official account. Read more here.

True crime broadsides were a popular business venture in 19th-century England

Offered by traveling peddlers, these playbills described crimes and crime scenes in detail and often included speeches and confessions of the soon-to-be executed. Broadsides typically included illustrations of crime and execution scenes to drive home the details.

How royal panic led to Europe's deadliest witch hunts

This article delves into the witch "panics" and hunts that roiled across Scotland between 1590 and 1662. The witch hunts in Scotland were unusually deadly, with the country having five times the average European execution rate per capita. Their...

Visualize 1,000 years of English monarchs with this timeline

Who sat on the throne and for how long? This visualization highlights the reigns of England’s kings and queens from 1066 to present day.

Mapping the known ports involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade

Based on historical logs, this interactive maps shows info from various ports of departure and arrival during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

A map of Barcelona from 150 BCE to 2010

Watch Barcelona evolve from Iberian settlements in 150 BCE to Spain’s second-largest city in the modern day by toggling this chronological series of 27 maps. Accompanied by a short contextual blurb, each map shows Barcelona’s steady urbanization over more than two millennia. For those captivated by the interactive, read this interview with one of the project’s key cartographers. He discusses how the mega-map was created and what it reveals about Barcelona’s history.

True crime, explained

Tales exploring some of the most grisly and unthinkable crimes have satisfied the public's morbid curiosity for more than a century, and modern podcasting has shot the genre to new heights. Want to learn more about the history of true crime? 1440 has the breakdown here.

See a data visualization of the East India Company's trade

This tool visualizes the East India Company’s trade from 1760 to 1834, letting you track shipments of tea, textiles, metals, and more. Users can sort by commodity, origin, destination, and date to see London’s vast imperial supply network that shaped the British Empire.

A collection of contemporary maps from World War II

Newspapers published detailed maps of the conflict in real-time. See different portrayals of the situation, ranging from propaganda maps to speculative maps about the war's outcome. The fascinating depictions reveal how maps can show us the aspirations and intentions of different players in a global conflict.

The earliest novelistic writing about a real-life murder might be an 1875 essay by poet Celia Thaxter

Though the nonfiction novel "In Cold Blood" is often cited as the beginning of the true crime genre, records show that true crime narratives were woven for decades before the novel's 1965 serialization. In "A Memorable Murder," Thaxter recounts the slaughter of her neighboring New England islanders.

What one seventh-century European teen might have looked like

A 16-year-old girl believed to have traveled from Central Europe to England in the seventh century was buried with rare, expensive jewelry. Her body was found in Cambridge, England in 2012, and analysis revealed what her face likely looked like. See...

Explore interactive maps from fictional journeys, including 'The Odyssey,' 'Moby-Dick,' and more.

Medieval sword manuals survive—but their techniques are hard to decode

While some knights guarded their combat knowledge, others recorded it in illustrated fighting manuals. Centuries later, scholars struggle to interpret these cryptic texts, revealing how much medieval martial knowledge was lost or obscured over time.

Mapping early New York

Want to see how Wall Street (and New York City as a whole) has changed over time? Use this timeline and map to see Manhattan today overlaid with the precise boundaries of early land grants to the Dutch in the 1600s. Scroll through the progress of city building through the first century of European settlement there.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement.

Medieval bestiaries blended real animals with myth and moral lessons

Medieval bestiaries combined observed animals with fantastical creatures, using vivid imagery to convey symbolism and moral meaning. This lecture explores England’s Worksop Bestiary (c. 1185), showcasing over 100 illustrated beasts from the Morgan Library’s collection.

London pet detectives set out to prove a spate of cat killings is the work of a serial killer

With dozens of felines turning up dead around London, a pair of pet detectives set out to prove it was the work of a serial killer.

Individuals have been convicted of ordering assassinations from the dark web

Researchers have uncovered online storefronts allegedly run by members of various mafia or hitmen that offer to harm or murder individuals in exchange for monetary payment. However, no known murder has been attributed to any of them, and cybercrime task forces believe them to be scams (warning—sensitive content).

Hear how the Black Death reshaped Europe's economy

The Black Death killed tens of millions across Europe, but the labor shortages that followed shifted economic power. With fewer workers available, survivors demanded higher wages and better conditions—sparking what historians call a medieval “Golden Age of Labor.”

Explore an interactive map of WWII shipwrecks.

Watch the British Empire expand and recede over 5 centuries

This interactive map traces the British Empire from 1450 to today—showing its explosive 19th-century expansion to one-quarter of the world's land and its steady contraction after World War II.

The bubonic plague spread in three waves over 600 years

The Black Death refers to the first wave of the plague, which swept through Europe in the 14th century and killed 25 to 50 million people. Caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis carried by fleas (often on rats), the human toll was roughly one-third of Europe's population at the time.

During the Medieval Period, urban populations grew significantly

As workers moved from fields to cities throughout the era, large metropolises of enduring strategic importance were formed from Paris, France, to Baghdad, Iraq.

The archaeological sites uncovered through London's Crossrail Project

The Crossrail Project is an underground train system in London, which saw 26 miles of new tunnels created over more than a decade. The project provided unique access to long-buried layers of London's history, and a massive parallel archaeological excavation took place.

The mystery of Sandby Borg: an Iron Age massacre

Sandby Borg, Sweden, was the site of a 5th-century slaughter where victims were left to rot where they fell. This article details how scientists are working to solve the prehistoric murder mystery and find out what happened to the Sandby Borg...

View depictions of world maps throughout history

The first map to use latitude and longitude positions was created by Ptolemy in 150 CE, over 700 years after the oldest known world map, the Imago Mundi, was made with a Babylonian clay tablet. The Spanish crown created a secret master map from hundreds of sailors’ reports.

12th-century English monks claimed discovery of King Arthur's bones

The medieval legend of King Arthur and his Queen, Guinevere, is one of the most popular to endure into the modern era. The legend regularly evolved during the Middle Ages, as is seen in this story where a historian from King Henry the Second's court claims the bones of Arthur were discovered at Glastonbury Abbey.

Explore Pompeii with an interactive map packed with 60+ key sites

This tool provides detailed information on major landmarks—from the Villa of Mysteries to the House of the Tragic Poet—and suggests themed walking routes based on visit length. A companion app adds virtual reconstructions and a full audioguide.

In medieval France, pigs were once put on trial

Pigs are omnivorous animals. There are hundreds of records of pigs killing and eating children in medieval Europe. In France, these tragedies often resulted in trials and then hangings. Some pigs were held in jail for years before being executed.

Take a tour of Charles Dickens' London

Much of Dickens' fiction concerns Victorian London and its people. This tour of the city, led by Dickens biographer Simon Callow, walks you through significant sites, like the place where Dickens' parents were married, the shoe-blacking factory where he worked as a boy, and the place where he created his first magazine.

See the increase in financial crimes globally on a map

The Global Organized Crime Index tracks annual shifts in organized crime, ranging from drug and human trafficking to financial crimes. The map shows crime levels for each country, as well as a profile of the country's annual shifts.

Clue, the murder-mystery board game, was designed during World War II air raids.

Explore the British Museum's collection across time and continents in this interactive Google Arts and Culture experience.

An interactive sound map of 8,000 locations around the world

Cities and Memory's global sound map covers 140 countries, featuring paired recordings: original field captures of a moment in time and an artist's recomposition built from the same source. The structure treats every location as both document and raw material, giving 2,500 contributors the same prompt with unpredictable results.

Illustrating the beginning and end of WWI through maps

In August of 1914, Germany invaded an ostensibly neutral Belgium, kick-starting World War I. The war became one of the deadliest conflicts in human history, decimating Europe and reshaping global politics for the next century. It also brought forward sweeping and terrifying new military technologies, a product of the Industrial Revolution. Explore 40 maps explaining the Great War in detail.

The Middle Ages, the roughly 1,000-year period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, shaped the political and cultural foundations of modern Europe.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Investigating 'the city that kills women'

For nearly three decades, thousands of women have disappeared near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Some were mutilated in ways that led authorities to suggest it the work of a serial killer, some were trafficked into slavery, and others have never been found. Opening with a hail of bullets, this 10-part podcast series hopes to uncover those responsible for the femicides.

An interactive map tracking conflict in the Middle East

Conflict and peace in the Middle East are constantly in flux. Decision-makers need up-to-date developments – both within individual countries and across the greater MENA region – to identify trends and risks of violence, and opportunities for...

Infographics explaining global terrorism trends

Our World in Data’s terrorism page details global trends in terrorism. Through interactive infographics, the site shows how the number of terrorist acts varies around the world and how it has changed over time. Sections investigate common definitions of terrorism, trends in global terrorism deaths, and the global distribution of terrorism. Additional segments highlight airline hijackings, public opinion, and media coverage of terrorism. Explore this website for an array of infographics on terrorism.

Create digital maps of Earth with custom sketches and labels

In this interactive, users can apply layers to various base maps to display natural and human features, including geological activity, biomes, ocean currents, population densities, and light pollution. Custom legends, markers, and drawings can be used to highlight prominent features.

True crime fans can derail lives with misguided accusations

In the wake of four stabbing deaths at the University of Idaho in November 2023, online sleuths, without any supporting evidence, were quick to point accusatory fingers at potential perpetrators. Poring over news reports, social media pages, and internet interactions can reveal viable information that can help solve crimes. Such (sometimes monetizable) behavior can also easily give rise to rumors and threats while impeding official investigations.(Some readers may experience a paywall.)

The history of the world map

What did people used to think the world looked like? From the beginning of human history to right before the age of exploration, learn how the world maps were created.

Track every cruise ship in real time, with itineraries and accident history

CruiseMapper is a live global tracker covering hundreds of vessels across major cruise lines. The site layers in port schedules, cabin-level deck plans, repositioning voyages, and a searchable database of 15 incident types—fires, groundings, virus outbreaks, drug smuggling, passenger deaths, and more.