September 2020

Expert history articles from the September 2020 issue of BBC History Magazine

Edward the Confessor seated at a banquet

Edward the Confessor: England’s holy hardman

A Fool Rebuked by God, 14th-century psalter. (Photo by Heritage Arts/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Medieval marginalia: exploring ‘doodles’ from the Middle Ages

Illustration for BBC History Magazine.

How potatoes conquered the world

Mary Seacole as seen in a contemporary photo. Although she became famous for her nursing work in the Crimean War, her story subsequently became largely forgotten. (Photo by Alamy)

My history hero: Bernardine Evaristo chooses Mary Seacole (1805–1881)

Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival (far right) marches to the Japanese camp to surrender Singapore. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun Premium via Getty Images)

Second World War

VJ Day: turning the tide in the east

Afua Hirsch in Kenya. (Photo by Clear Story/BBC)

Afua Hirsch: “The prejudice still surrounding Africa is absolutely rooted in a racist past”

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)

Second World War

Hiroshima: the race to the atomic bomb

US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference. (Photo by Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Donald Trump: a president without precedent?

As seen in this early 19th-century depiction of an initiation, Masons have long used secrecy to

A history of Freemasonry: from Enlightenment ideals to satanic conspiracy stories