BBC History Magazine

The online archive of articles from BBC History Magazine

A photograph of the England team that faced Australia at the Oval in the 1896 Ashes series

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Batting for the British Empire: how Victorian cricket was more than just a game. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Theodore Roosevelt visiting a US army camp, c1918. (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

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The great American U-turn: from isolationism to WW1 combatants. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A plaque which decorated the palace of the Benin Obas, The Obas butchers sacrificing a cow, the most prestigious animal sacrifice

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Benin: a kingdom cast in bronze, brought to ruin by Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thomas Crapper started a plumbing business in Chelsea in 1861 and pioneered some of the most revolutionary designs of sanitary engineering in the 19th century – but he didn't 'invent' the toilet

Victorian

The legend of Thomas Crapper, the man who didn't invent the toilet

A phantasmagoria by Belgian entertainer Etienne-Gaspard Robert, whose stage name was Etienne Robertson, 1797. (Photo by Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

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Phantasmagoria: creating the ‘ghosts’ of the Enlightenment. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Henrietta Maria, Queen of Charles I

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Henrietta Maria: Charles I’s warrior queen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Concerned that Russia was expanding its influence in the region, Britain invaded Afghanistan in 1839, ousting ruler Dost Mohammad and replacing him with Shah Shuja, who had been king from 1803–10. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

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Britain's first war in Afghanistan: what happened and why?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration representing various empires across history

General ancient history

Have empires ever been a force for good?

Walter Scott: an engraving after a painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence of the Scottish poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott

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Walter Scott: the man who invented Scotland. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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VJ Day: turning the tide in the east. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Black and white image of a group of five men sat on the floor in a room in Fiji. One of them is pointing at another with a serious expression on his face.

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Cakobau: the first (and last) king of Fiji. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials

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Alice Roberts“Graves are like time capsules – little microcosms of prehistoric culture". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Anne of Denmark, wife of James I of England

Stuart

Anne of Denmark: a killer queen?

Georgian

Mary Wortley Montagu: the scourge of smallpox

A bas relief fragment portraying Cleopatra

Ancient Egypt

The female 'kings' of ancient Egypt

20th Century

History heroSteven Berkoff chooses Laurence Olivier (1907–89)

Scientists Frederic Joliot-Curie and his wife, Irene, at work in their Paris laboratory in December 1932. The couple were among a wide-ranging group of scientists whose work paved the way for the atomic bomb. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

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Hiroshima: the race to the atomic bomb. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Katherine Parr in a jewelled head dress and finery

Tudor

Q&AWhat happened to Katherine Parr’s daughter, Mary Seymour, after her mother’s death?

Portrait of Ide B Wells

Victorian

Ida B Wells: civil rights activist and scourge of lynch mobs

Portrait Of Edward Seymour (Colorized)

Tudor

Edward Seymour: the fall of the dithering dictator

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Emma Dabiri"William Cuffay's story is more relevant now than ever". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A group of men observe a body lying on a table.

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Early-modern cannibal doctors: why mummified corpse was considered medicine. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Persian ambassador bows before Louis XIV in the Palace of Versailles

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King of the world: how Louis XIV turned France into a global power. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Crown Prince Olav on his ice yacht (Getty Images) 

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From Hollywood to war heroes: 10 Olympians who were more famous outside sport. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Belgium and the Netherlands compete in a tug of war at the Antwerp Olympic

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Olympic oddballs: 5 unusual Olympic sports from the past. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jesse Owens sprinting on a track at the Berlin Olympics.

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A history of unsporting conduct at the Olympics. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mao Zedong applauds a parade of Red Guards in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. These young militants followed Mao’s call in early August 1966 to defend the party from a ‘white terror’. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

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Reign of the red terror: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tokyo Olympics 1964: Yoshinori Sakai prepares to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony. Born on the day that the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, he was a symbol of Japan’s postwar reconstruction and peace

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Tokyo Olympics 1964: the Games that defined Japan. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Are revolutions doomed to failure?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Medieval romances were sometimes considered subversive material. This scene from the Roman de la Rose, written in the 13th century, depict two lovers. In later centuries, it was said romances “inflamed beastly and filthy desire”

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The Mills & Boon of the Middle Ages? Unpicking the mysteries of medieval romances. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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