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The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine

Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon, in San Francisco during a visit to America, November 1965. (Photo by Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images)

“Cheap men and expensive bottles”: Princess Margaret’s love affairs

Second World War

The ‘British Schindler’ who saved 669 children from the Nazis

Beowulf: The Anglo-Saxons’ action hero

Richard III, anonymous painting around 1500. (Photo by Alamy)

The house of York

James VI and I depicted in Parliament, c1605

The history of the Crown’s relationship with parliament: 6 key moments

Latest articles

Halloween history

This Halloween postcard, which features a witch, a black cat, and lots of little spirits, was printed mid-1900s in New York City. (Photo by Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)

10 things you didn’t know about the history (and mystery) of Halloween

In 1733, as part of a plot to blow up a Protestant church, a group of Catholics claimed they were being terrorised by a poltergeist… or so the story went. (Illustration by Ben Jones for BBC History Magazine)

5 Georgian ghost hoaxes

Being invited to become a 'guest' of the Tower of London in medieval England meant, more often than not, that you would soon be food for the crows. (Image by Getty Images/RM Creative)

10 historical haunted sites across Britain

Helen Duncan, a 20th-century medium and spiritualist, allegedly summoned spirits draped in ‘ectoplasm’ – organic matter emitted from her body. In the 1930s she was denounced as a fraud, and in 1944 prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcra Act, which forbade conjuring spirits. (Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum/University of London)

Conjuring up the dead: Helen Duncan and her ectoplasm spirits

A depiction of a witch on a broomstick. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Halloween history quiz: test your knowledge

An illustration of a group of supposed witches

A very brief history of witches by Suzannah Lipscomb

Read more Halloween history

In the news

Today’s events in historical context…

St Catharine's College, Cambridge has already removed a bell from view after concluding it came from a slave plantation. (Image by Alamy)

Anna Whitelock Confronting slavery’s legacy

Prohibition protesters parade in a car emblazoned with signs and flags calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment, which outlawed the production and consumption of alcohol in the United States. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

“A great social experiment”: your guide to prohibition

US baseball legend, Joseph 'Shoeless Joe' Jackson, who was banned from the game along with seven other players after admitting that they had accepted money to lose the 1919 World Series.

“Say it ain’t so”: The ‘Black Sox’ scandal that rocked American baseball

Winchester Cathedral

From King Alfred to Jane Austen: a historical tour of Winchester

Black History Month

October marks Black History Month in the UK – a celebration and recognition of the accomplishments of Black Britons

A badge featuring American civil rights activist Martin Luther King

The global legacy of Martin Luther King

The Haiti slave revolt. (Image by Getty)

Slave revolt

An illustration of slaves picking cotton on a plantation. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

David Olusoga "Black history affects all of us – it is British history"

Young and Dabiri podcast

Africa’s contested past

HistoryExtra Podcast

The latest episodes from the History Extra podcast

30th June 1963: Some of the many hundreds of supporters of the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and the Committee of 100 waiting outside Birch Grove, the country home of British prime minister Harold Macmillan, where he and American president John F Kennedy are having weekend talks. (Photo by Kent Gavin/Keystone/Getty Images)

Peter Hennessy on Britain in transition

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The origins of the Tudors

The Vietnam War podcast

The Vietnam War on film

Podcast Website Large Helen Fry - WWII Intelligence

Second World War

Secret listeners

Simon Sebag Montefiore on letters from history. (Photo by Dreamstime)

Letters that changed the world

Historian and writer William Dalrymple during the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2017 (Photo by Martina Bocchio / Awakening / Alamy)

William Dalrymple on the East India Company

View all podcasts

The start of the Second World War

80 years since the conflict began, find out more about the road to WW2…

Neville Chamberlain speaks to a crowd after meeting Hitler, Mussolini, and Deladier to settle the question of the Czecho-Slovak dispute. (Photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)

Second World War

Appeasement and the road to World War Two

Roger Moorhouse. (By hyattstudios.co.uk)

Second World War

“Much of what we know about the September campaign of 1939 is wrong”: 5 minutes with Roger Moorhouse

Red Army tank drivers on a street in the city of Rakov, Poland

Second World War

1939: When Poland was torn to pieces

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Second World War

It’s rubbish to claim that Britain provoked Hitler into a fight

Trending in the US

Princess Margaret attends the premiere of Captain Horatio Hornblower, Leicester Square, 1951. (Photo by Ron Burton/Keystone/Getty Images)

The Queen’s “rebel sister”: 8 facts about Princess Margaret

A portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with five of their nine children, by Frederick Winterhalter. (Photo by © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Victoria and Albert: a marriage of misery?

Elizabeth I, shown in a portrait commemorating victory over the Armada. (Photo by Photo 12/UIG via Getty Images)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Elizabeth I

Scores of people milled about the entrance to the Stock Exchange on 24 October 1929, as the market went through the greatest shake up in its history. It was a light tremor heralding the earthquake to come. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

The Wall Street Crash: the day the bubble burst

Read American history

Brexit

The history behind Britain’s decision to leave the European Union…

(Getty Images)

Why has Britain decided to leave the EU?

(Photo by Alamy)

Brexit lessons from history

(Illustration by Davide Bonazzi for BBC History Magazine)

The big question: has the European Union been a success?

“The anglocentric view we have of British history is unsustainable,” says Misha Glenny

Brexit and American independence

The reluctant Europeans

Latest articles

Photo of pears

Second World War

Q&A Why do we say 'it's all gone pear-shaped'?

Photo of a gramophone

Q&A Who do we say 'put a sock in it'?

Photo of Abraham Lincoln

Q&A Did Abraham Lincoln’s beard win him the election?

Peter Mayhew, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill, on-set of the film Star Wars

Star Wars: why did the film make history?

Read more of our latest articles

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History Quizzes

How much do you know about history? Test out your knowledge with our quizzes...

People praying for relief from the bubonic plague, circa 1350. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Medieval quiz

A depiction of a witch on a broomstick. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Halloween history quiz: test your knowledge

The results of the poll: 100 women who changed the world. (Photos by Getty Images/Alamy)

Quiz: 100 Women Who Changed The World

great fire 4

Great Fire of London quiz – how much do you know?

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Popular historic periods

Portrait of King Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Prince Edward. (Photo by Getty Images)

Tudor

Illustrated Medieval scene from the Romance of Lancelot

Medieval

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20th Century

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Popular people from history

Painting of Henry VIII

Henry VIII

Portrait of Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria

Winston Churchill gives his famous v-sign as he opens the new headquarters of 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron of the RAAF (Royal Auxiliary Air Force) at Croydon, 1948. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Winston Churchill

Golden funerary mask of Tutankhamun, inlaid with lapis lazuli, obsidian and turquoise. (Photo By DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

Tutankhamun

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Popular historic topics

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Social history

Photo of Mabel Capper and Patricia Woodlock advertising a meeting, Manchester, Lancashire, July 1908

Women's history

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Sex and love

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Military history

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