Northern Ireland

Ronald Hutton discusses Oliver Cromwell’s early life and career, exploring the brilliance and cruelty of the future Lord Protector. (Image by Getty Images)

Oliver Cromwell’s remarkable rise to power

A contemporary illustration of the Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 – an event that helped create the idea of 'revolution' as we know it today. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Fighting for freedom: the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution

British prime minister Clement Attlee reading a document in his office, 27 July 1946. (Photo by Haywood Magee/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Clement Attlee: Labour’s postwar leader

Irish people demonstrate in Downing Street in London in 1921. The partition of Ireland between the six north-eastern counties and the rest of Ireland took place on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. (Photo by - / AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

A brief history of the partition of Ireland

Babies from a nursery are walked in a pram, c1953

A nation in numbers: 100 years of British life in 7 statistics

To mark HistoryExtra’s 1,000th episode, Dan Jones takes us on a whistlestop tour through the last millennium of British history. (Image by Steve Sayers)

Dan Jones on 1,000 years of British history

Black and white photo of a group of women marching while holding a sign saying 'International Women's Day'

A brief history of International Women’s Day: what is it and why do we celebrate it?

Though green dominates the celebrations today, the colour blue was first associated with St Patrick. The earliest depictions of the saint show him in blue garments, as in this 13th century folio, La Vie des Sains. ( Image ©The British Library Board/Leemage / Bridgeman Images)

A brief history of St Patrick’s Day

Student nurse Dorothy Norris

A brief guide to the history of the NHS

Professor Robert Tombs, Fellow of French history at St John's College

“Both sides of the Brexit debate have got things wrong about our history”: Robert Tombs on Britain’s complex relationship with Europe

One of the burial mounds at Sutton Hoo

How dark were the Dark Ages?

Covid-19 saw the UK’s universities, such as the University of Glasgow (above), cancel in-person teaching. The logistics of teaching and studying during the pandemic are proving complex. (Photo by Dreamstime)

How Covid-19 is forcing universities to change

Illustration by Joey Guidone

The big question: has terrorism ever achieved its aims?

Iron Age bronze head

The Celts in Britain: everything you need to know

A mushroom cloud produced by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb during Operation Ivy, an American nuclear test that took place in 1952. (SSPL/Getty Images)

How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world