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Vintners in an ale house, 1642. From a broadsheet titled ‘Health to All’, artist unknown. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Did Oliver Cromwell ban Christmas? The Puritan assault on Christmas during the 1640s and 1650s

Thomas Kendrick: MI6 spymaster who helped win WW2. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. (Getty Images)

First World War

Did a British agent murder Rasputin?

St Columba. This Irish patron saint's influence on the Christian church was, and still is, felt much further afield

Medieval miracle worker: how St Columba transformed Christianity in Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Pearl HarborEpisode 5. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Masterclass: Tudor Royal Women with Tracy Borman

Tudor Royal Women with Tracy BormanThe Private Life of Elizabeth I. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Masterclass: Tudor Royal Women with Tracy Borman

Tudor Royal Women with Tracy BormanRivals to the Throne. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Masterclass: Tudor Royal Women with Tracy Borman

Tudor Royal Women with Tracy BormanWomen at Court. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

HistoryExtra Masterclass: Tudor Royal Women with Tracy Borman

Tudor Royal Women with Tracy BormanQueens Regnant. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

John Duval Gluck, Jr, 'the Santa Claus man', pictured left, visiting the General Post Office to promote the Santa Claus Association’s benefit show

The con man who saved Christmas. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Fascism: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Yugoslavia: the beginning of the end. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The first controlled, powered and sustained human flight on 17 December 1903 by the Wright Brothers. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Flying into history: the Wright Brothers' Flyer and the world's first flight

Black and white image of island prison, taken from the sky

The battle of Alcatraz, 1946: the most violent escape attempt in the prison’s history

What happened to Britain’s lost Roman legion?

Triumph against the odds: the 1821 Greek Revolution. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Photo of members of the Versailles Conference

First World War

Your guide to the Treaty of Versailles

Tom Smith's Surprise Cosaques, Christmas Crackers 1878. (Image by Getty)

The history of Christmas crackers

A 13th-century fresco showing Isabella of Angouleme, Eleanor of Aquitaine and two squires

Eleanor of Aquitaine: the worst royal mother-in-law?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Emma Dabiri“He dreamed a career that seemed impossible and made it a reality”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

England’s last witches. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hadrian’s Wall: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Froissart illustration of Hugh Despenser the Younger's execution by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despenser is on a ladder, as a man beside him disembowels him and tosses his entrails into a fire

‘Godly butchery’: the horrifying history of hanging, drawing and quartering

Schoolchildren in Liverpool have their Christmas party in an air raid shelter built into a railway arch

What was Christmas like in Britain during WW2?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Soviet infantrymen charge in a counter offensive during the battle of Moscow, 1941.

The 1941 battle of Moscow: how successful was Operation Typhoon?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Q&AWhy do some people call the Irish famine ‘the Great Hunger’?

A woman slops here chamberpot from a window onto pedestrians in the street below in this woodcut

Were medieval cities really filthy?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How US-Russian relations fractured in the 1990s. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Stuka dive bombers fly in formation over France in May 1940

Second World War

The making and breaking of the Luftwaffe

The USS West Virginia burns at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941

What if…Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.