Europe

A Battle of Britain type 'scramble', circa 1940. An improved Spitfire is pushed onto the runway by a group of pilots from the squadron. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

The good war?

A Red Cross worker in the United States wears a mask to reduce the risk of contracting or spreading the disease in 1918. Though doctors didn’t initially understand the nature of the infectious agent, ‘social distancing’ helped slow the propagation of the flu. (Photo by Paul Thompson/FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Spanish flu: the virus that changed the world

Professor Kathleen Burk and Simon Jenkins discuss Jenkins's new book, 'A Short History of Europe'. (Photo by David Hampton for BBC World Histories magazine)

Simon Jenkins and Kathleen Burk on the history of Europe

From The Library

Professor Kathleen Burk and Simon Jenkins discuss Jenkins's new book, 'A Short History of Europe'. (Photo by David Hampton for BBC World Histories magazine)

Great wars were started by young men with “jangling hormones”, argues Simon Jenkins

(Illustration by Davide Bonazzi for BBC History Magazine)

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

Illustration of Queen Matilda of Boulogne, by Eleanor Shakespeare

Matilda of Boulogne: Norman England’s warrior queen

From The Library

Vienna's magnificent city hall, built between 1872 and 1883, can be found in the heart of the city. (Picture by Moment/Getty Images)

My favourite place: Vienna, Austria

A fourth to fifth-century AD Roman mosaic shows a woman spinning. The household was considered a woman's natural environment; the political arena certainly was not. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

6 women who changed the course of Roman history

Neville Chamberlain holds aloft the famous piece of paper at Heston aerodrome on 30 September 1938. (Picture by Alamy)

Second World War

The Munich crisis: The battle of appeasement

From The Library

Top ( l-r) Agrippina the Elder, Julia, and Livia. Bottom (l-r) Messalina and Agrippina the Younger

The women who built the Roman Empire

From The Library

Vienna's magnificent city hall, built between 1872 and 1883, can be found in the heart of the city. (Picture by Moment/Getty Images)

My favourite place: Vienna, Austria

From The Library

Protesters on the streets of Prague during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968. Of all the history books Ian Kershaw has authored down the decades, his two wide-ranging volumes on modern Europe have proved the most difficult to write. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Ian Kershaw on the trials of writing modern history

From The Library

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after the closing bell on 29 September 2008. A record 778 points were wiped off the Dow Jones that day, as the 2008 financial crisis pushed the world's banking system to the edge of collapse. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The credit crunch: “It’s a story of hubris followed by a fall”

From The Library

The march for Catalan Independence held in Barcelona, 11 September 2014 (Photo by Jordi Elias Grassot/Alamy)

Scots and Catalans