The samurai’s history and legacy, Angela Merkel’s 21st-century military and a new aviation festival

A new exhibition at the British Museum explores the mythmaking of Japan’s feudal warriors

From voyages to battles, gods to monsters, heroics to cowardice, the Viking sagas explore all of these themes in magnificent detail

With emerald hills here and sinuous rivers there, a Yorkshire farmer’s years spent surveying the land on horseback resulted in a lavish and surprisingly accurate atlas of Elizabeth I’s Britain, says Ben Lerwill

Far more than a walking aid, a properly made stick is a tangible–not to mention very useful– link to the land itself, says Gabriel Stone

What do our beloved hostelries have to do with the discovery of DNA, the D-Day landings and The Lord of the Rings ? Everything, as Ashleigh Arnott discovers