20th Century

The Lockheed U-2 shares little in common with a flying saucer. (Image by Alamy)

Q&A How did Area 51 become associated with aliens?

When Panorama cameras recorded a fly-on-the-wall documentary entitled 'The Best Days?' that followed life at Faraday High, a large comprehensive in East Acton, west London. It proved to be hugely controversial. (Photo by William Gottlieb/ CORBIS/ Corbis via Getty Images)

Lessons from the past: journalist Shabnam Grewal revisits her 1970s schooldays

Shortlist of the 2019 Cundill History Prize - Outward Row

Revealed: the 8 history books shortlisted for the 2019 Cundill History Prize

Tyburn, just north of Marble Arch, served as the capital's hanging spot for centuries. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

An A-Z guide to the history of executions

The capture of the pirate Blackbeard, 1718. Painting by JLG Ferris. One of history’s most notorious pirates, Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach almost certainly had a West Country twang because he was born in Bristol in around 1680. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

Q&A Did most English pirates really talk with a West Country accent?

BBC World Histories Magazine Issue 18

Issue 18 of BBC World Histories is out now

Dinner at Downton Abbey

Could you survive an Edwardian dinner party?

Illustration by Joey Guidone

The big question: has terrorism ever achieved its aims?

20 October 2018.
BBC History Weekend in York.
Henry Hemming.

Second World War

“There’s nothing essentially new about fake news”: 5 minutes with Henry Hemming

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Even after her death in 2013, her record continued to be fiercely contested. (Tom Stoddart/Getty Images)

How should history remember Margaret Thatcher?

Chancellor Adolf Hitler with President Paul von Hindenburg, Berlin, 1 May 1933

Second World War

Hitler’s millionaire backers: how Germany’s elite facilitated the rise of the Nazis

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 over appeasement

Amelia Earhart, who became the first woman to fly non-stop across the Atlantic in 1932. (Image by Bettmann/Getty Images)

My history hero Amelia Earhart (1897–1937)

Neil MacGregor photographed in London. “It seemed a good juncture, as Britain sets to leave the EU and operate alone on the world stage, to get a sense of how other countries view us,” he says. (Image by Chris McAndrew)

Neil MacGregor: “A consistent element of Britain’s image has been the lonely fighter standing against foreign tyranny”

Courtiers dancing La Volta in a scene from 1953 film The Sword And The Rose

Strictly shocking: the dances that shook the world