People watching the Royal Wedding

United Kingdom

General History

British schools and education: everything you wanted to know

On the streets of 19th-century London

A man walking past a pile of uncollected rubbish during the Winter of Discontent, 22 September 1978

Q&AWhat was the Winter of Discontent?

An overturned vehicle on tramlines as a blockage to traffic during the General Strike of 1926

A brief history of strike action

Tudors play real tennis, a precursor to the modern game of tennis

Q&AWhat was Real Tennis?

From bohemian Brighton to military Plymouth: the LGBTQ history of four British cities

An angry crowd of around 400 miners blockade National Coal Board boss Ian McGregor inside a colliery office at Ellinton Colliery, 22 February 1984

Your guide to the miners’ strike of 1984–85

Your guide to George Orwell and his visions of dystopia

A portrait of young Queen Victoria wearing a tiara

The young Queen Victoria’s struggle to gain the throne

Episode 7Bones, diet and migrants

Victoria Drummond, Britain's first female marine engineer. Also seen is her ancestral home, Megginch Castle; a Second World War Allied convoy; Mount Etna, which she encountered on one voyage; and a Lloyd’s War Medal for Bravery at Sea, similar to the one that Drummond received in 1941

Victoria Drummond: trailblazing ship's engineer and war hero

Why we should remember…Charles Babbage's Difference Engine

Lucy Worsley on three extraordinary livesThe survivor, the 'incurable' and the scapegoat

Closeup of Henry VIII's face

The slow death of Henry VIII

Princess Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour (Photos by Getty and Alamy)

Did Thomas Seymour sexually abuse the teenage Princess Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Gaskell: a voice of the Victorians

A portrait of William Shakespeare

History quiz – language and literature

Episode 6Cultures lost and found

Robert Louis Stevenson, the 19th-century English poet and novelist perhaps best known for his books 'Treasure Island' and the 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson: novelist, playwright, poet, traveller

1842 self-portrait of Sarah Biffin

The armless artist who wowed Queen Victoria

A woman reading a vintage thesaurus

Q&AWho wrote the first thesaurus?

A stained glass portrait of Dr Samuel Johnson in 17 Gough Square, London Inns court c1989.

"A useful time-capsule of Georgian life": Samuel Johnson and his remarkable dictionary

The Queen's century of change

Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II in 2006 film 'The Queen'

Screen QueenElizabeth II on film

Episode 5An identity crisis?

Queen Elizabeth II, in March 2022 - the year of her platinum jubilee (Photo by Getty Images)

QuizQueen Elizabeth II and her reign

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip mark the diamond jubilee in 2012 by watching the Jubilee River Pageant, where a seven-mile flotilla sails past them (Photo by Eddie Mullholland - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

From silver to platinum: a history of Queen Elizabeth II's jubilees

Queen Elizabeth II, in March 2022 - the year of her platinum jubilee (Photo by Getty Images)

Britain's golden jubilees: from George III to Elizabeth II

Marriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête.

What great paintings sayMarriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête by William Hogarth, c1743–45

Episode 4Religion and belief