20th Century - Getty Images

20th Century

Episode 2Was it possible to be neutral in World War One?.

Episode 3Beyond the trenches: untold stories of WW1.

Episode 1Did Franz Ferdinand's death really start World War One?.

Cold War-era President John F Kennedy leaves St Stephen Martyr Catholic Church in Washington DC — just hours before Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to withdraw missiles from Cuba, defusing the Cold War’s most dangerous standoff.

The CIA’s most unlikely Cold War weapon? A secret smuggling operation that terrified Soviet censors

A portrait of James Bond author Ian Fleming

Second World War

Think James Bond's pure fantasy? His creator's real WW2 missions were more outrageous than you'd believe

The People's Princess: why Diana captivated the world.

SOE: everything you wanted to know.

Michael Wood on the New Angel | "Few works of 20th-century art have such a distinguished list of past owners".

Nancy Mitford

The real Nancy Mitford: meet the bestselling novelist who betrayed her sister

Diana Mitord

The real Diana Mitford: society beauty and unabashed fascist

Unity Mitford

The real Unity Mitford: meet the high society British Nazi who was rumoured to have had Hitler's child

Unity Mitford, Diana Mitford and Nancy Mitford

The real Mitford Sisters: fascism, communism and Nazism collide in the true story behind Outrageous

How the Allies won WW2.

A historical reenactor, dressed as a member of the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War, takes a selfie with a phone. He is standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC; a Stars and Stripes flag is to his right.

What is Juneteenth, and why is it celebrated? A historian explains the significance of the holiday today.

Pauline Black and Billie Holiday

My history heroPauline Black chooses Billie Holiday.

Barmier than Bond: Ian Fleming's extraordinary wartime escapades.

CIA book smugglers of the Cold War.

Winston Churchill and Winston the Platypus

Second World War

Winston and the platypus: how a bizarre WW2 diplomacy mission to influence Churchill ended in death and tragedy

"These women transformed his understanding of the world": making Malcolm X.

The Third Reich's first genocide.

D-Day: the spearhead of the invasion.

A pink tissue box with a white tissue coming out of it

From Operation Snuffles to Killer Kleenex: the forgotten history of the secret Cold War experiments in Antarctica has just been uncovered

Captured Boer fighters from General Cronjé’s command sit on the dusty ground near Modder River, awaiting tent assignments in a British prison camp during the Second Boer War (1899–1902).

She exposed the horrors of Britain’s secret concentration camps – so why was she demonised?

The Enola Gay aircraft, which dropped the first atomic bomb of the Second World War on Hiroshima.

Second World War

Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US in WW2 justified?

Calamity Jane: life of the week.

Spiritual showmen: the 1920s occult.

Two boys dressed in thick coats and hats rummage through the ground for potatoes

Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "Social taboos are violated: a parent must decide which child to feed".

Danny Robins and Harry Price

My history heroDanny Robins chooses Harry Price

The Einstein murders.

Peaks, perils, and pioneers: the deadly history of mountaineering.