20th Century

Charles Emmerson (Photo by James Hill NYT Moscow)

The birth of the modern world

Uncertain futures: Children of black American servicemen and white British women often spent time in case, such as this group photographed at Holnicote House in Somerset. (Photo by Lesley York – Author provided)

Mixed-race babies born after the Second World War

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini give a fascist salute

A dictator’s death: how Stalin, Hitler, Mao and other self-styled strongmen met their ends

The first controlled, powered and sustained human flight on 17 December 1903 by the Wright Brothers. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

17 December 1903: the day the Wright Brothers flew into history

Margaret Thatcher enters Downing Street

How to win an election: 25 general elections and where they were won – and lost

Rotten boroughs cartoon

9 general election curiosities through history

Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. When Edward became king in January 1936, he was the darling of the nation. Yet when he abdicated in December 1936, few believed he was making the wrong decision. (Photo by Getty Images)

Love before duty: the story of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson

A voter in a British election in 1923.

A new political climate? The UK’s long tradition of winter elections

Three elderly men on a bench in London's Southall, circa 1980. (Photo by Getty Images)

Asians in 1980s Britain

German-born physicist Albert Einstein.

5 things you (probably) didn’t know about Albert Einstein

A family at the seaside in the 1960s.

In pictures: English life in the 1960s, photographed by Tony Ray-Jones

Listening in: a doctor uses a stethoscope to examine a patient in 1948. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

The birth pains of the NHS

Pearl Harbor sparked an aircraft-manufacturing drive – and, for the first time, allowed US women to perform jobs previously held only by men. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Pearl Harbor aftermath: the fallout from the attack

British mystery writer Agatha Christie, c1926. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie

Lord Mountbatten at a desk

Lord Mountbatten: Did Prince Philip’s uncle attempt to lead a coup against Harold Wilson’s government?