Features

A new Vikings exhibition opens at the British Museum in March
Vikings: life and legend
6th March 2014
A new exhibition shedding light on the Viking world opens at the British Museum this week
Pro-EU protests in Kiev - Getty Images
The history of Ukraine
5th March 2014
Both the European Community and President Putin are making plays for Ukraine’s favours. Chris Bowlby looks at the republic’s varied history to explore its present dilemma This article was originally published in the February issue of BBC History Magazine
Ravi Puri, Kavita's father, came to Britain in 1959
£3 in my pocket: the pioneering migrants who came to Britain from India in the 1950s
5th March 2014
They came to work in Britain's factories, foundries and new public services, at a time when the country desperately needed workers from its former colonies to regenerate its postwar economy. Many arrived with no more than £3 in their pocket – the limit set by the Indian authorities.
© Courtesy of the Sotheby’s Picture Library
William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain
3rd March 2014
Take a look at a host of images from a new exhibition on Georgian designer William Kent, which opens at the V&A in March
Piccadilly Circus 1953 and 2014 © Wolf Suschitzky – Museum of London
Ghostly images of London then and now
26th February 2014
Images of some of the capital's most iconic locations, which show how they look today as compared to in the 19th and 20th centuries, have been made available by the Museum of London. The photographs, taken by renowned late 19th and 20th-century photographers including Henry Grant, Wolfgang Suschitsky, Roger Mayne and George Davison Reid, show spots including Brick Lane, Covent Garden and Victoria Station.      
Rupert Wilkinson and his sister before they entered Santo Tomás Internment Camp
“Being in a prison camp was better than going to a British boarding school”: child hostage of Japanese in WW2 reflects on his experience
25th February 2014
Rupert Wilkinson was five years old when, along with his mother and sister, he was forced to leave his home and live under the domination of the Japanese in an internment camp in the Philippines.
In pictures: the strange history of drinking
24th February 2014
An exhibition charting the pleasures and pitfalls of wine, beer and spirits through the ages has gone on display at the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in Regent's Park, London. Through a variety of intriguing paintings, prints, rare books, objects and photographs – including loans from the Museum of London, the Wellcome Library and the Cartoon Museum – ‘This bewitching poison’: alcohol and the Royal College of Physicians traces the strange and occasionally deadly medicinal use and consumption of alcohol in history.
The Monuments Men © Columbia Pictures in association with 20th Century Fox
Historian at the Movies: The Monuments Men reviewed
19th February 2014
As part of our Historian at the Movies series, Dr Nigel Pollard from Swansea University reviews The Monuments Men, a true-story film about Allied officers charged with saving historic artefacts in the Second World War
5 Sam Willis video interviews with Suzannah Lipscomb, James Holland and other historians
19th February 2014
As part of a video series produced for History Extra, Dr Sam Willis interviewed five eminent historians about their fields of expertise – from Tudors with Suzannah Lipscomb, to the Second World War with James Holland.
Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger - copyright GL Archive/Alamy
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn: Suzannah Lipscomb dispels myths about the lovers who changed history
18th February 2014
They are two of history’s most captivating figures, their romance-turned-tragedy known the world over. But what was the true nature of the relationship between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and how did Anne come to lose her head?
Derby Crich Bakery - credit Crich Parish/BBC
Then and Now: neighbourhoods during the First World War
18th February 2014
Photos that reveal how neighbourhoods across the UK looked during the First World War as compared to today have been published by the BBC.
So That’s Why… ‘Looty’ was a Pekingese - © Look and Learn/Bridgeman Art Library
Anne Boleyn’s lapdog and John Quincy Adams’s alligator: 10 famous people in history and their bizarre pets
13th February 2014
We 21st-century types are dedicated pet-lovers – the UK pet industry alone is worth an estimated £4bn – but we shouldn’t think this is a recent obsession. The bond between human and animal has often been a close one, and some of history’s most famous people were keen pet-owners. Greg Jenner writes
A chocolate house in Georgian times © TopFoto
A hangover cure, medicinal wonder-drink and Valentine’s Day gift: the history of our obsession with chocolate
13th February 2014
As Hampton Court Palace prepares to open to the public a royal chocolate-making kitchen that once catered for kings William III and II, George I and George II, Sara Pennell, a senior lecturer in early modern British history at the University of Roehampton, charts the history of our love of chocolate
The kitchen will host live Georgian chocolate-making sessions - credit HRP
How to make 17th-century chocolate for Valentine's Day
13th February 2014
The 'food of love', chocolate makes for a popular Valentine's Day gift. And Hampton Court Palace is marking the occasion by opening to the public a royal chocolate-making kitchen that once catered for kings William III, George I and George II. But if you can't make it to London, and you're loathe to buy a box of heart-shaped treats, why not try your hand at this 17th-century chocolate recipe?
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