20th Century - Getty Images

20th Century

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

Olympic oddballs: 5 unusual Olympic sports from the past

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)

Reign of the red terror: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution

The slave trade: a family history

Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster

What was the Chernobyl Disaster?

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

Tokyo Olympics 1964: the Games that defined Japan

The piano: a musical history

Should they stand or fall? The great statue debate

Are revolutions doomed to failure?

The execution of Louis XVI in the Place de la Revolution

What is a revolution?

Watergate in 100 days: how President Nixon fell

Watergate in 100 days: how President Nixon fell

Running to escape the horrors of war

The glamour & danger of Cairo’s 1920s nightlife scene

England's World Cup-winning captain, Bobby Moore (1941–93) kisses the Jules Rimet World Cup trophy after England's 4-2 win over West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley Stadium, London. Also pictured are Moore's team-mates George Cohen, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

In pictures: when England won the football World Cup

Healthcare before the NHS

Second World War

Tobruk: 8 facts about the WW2 confrontation in North Africa

The Cold War battle for Berlin

The history and mystery of UFOs

The trials of Ethel Rosenberg

Kurdish fighters in north-west Iran, 1918

The history of the Kurds in Iraq: "the largest people never to have achieved statehood"

Socialite, countess, WW2 spy: Aline Griffith

Fred Perry in action in the Wimbledon final in 1936. (Photo by Getty Images)

Fred Perry: the icon and the outcast

Murder: a legal history

HMT Empire Windrush arrives at Tilbury Docks

Bound for Britain: your guide to the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush

The untold story of India’s WW2 prisoners of war

The merits of meritocracy

Women secret agents in Nazi-occupied France

A man digs a grave in Sarajevo for victims of the war in Bosnia, 1992

Yugoslavia: why shared Slavic identity couldn’t save an idealised nation from fracture and bloodshed

"Make love not midnight snacks": a social history of slimming clubs

Censorship, contradiction & controversy: a decade in the life of DH Lawrence

Who was Britain’s greatest prime minister? Episode 9: Secrets of being a successful leader