20th Century - Getty Images

20th Century

Virginia Woolf, writer and critic. (Image by Getty Images)

Virginia Woolf: a brief guide to the writer's life

Spy plane photos revealed that missile bases were being built on Cuba, prompting the crisis. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

What if...The Cuban Missile Crisis escalated?

Learning the hard way: soldiers struggle to move a field gun through the Flanders mud. The key to victory in the west was the Allies’ ability to effect one of the “most consequential technologies and tactical transformations in the history of war,” says Nick Lloyd. (Photo by Getty Images)

Revolution on the western front

The western front: a cauldron of innovation

Professor Stephen Hawking in his office at the University of Cambridge, 2003

History heroBobby Seagull chooses Stephen Hawking (1942–2018)

The Cold War: everything you wanted to know

A photograph of the battle of Moscow, 1942, first printed in Signal, a magazine published by the German Third Reich from 1940 to 1945. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Second World War

Operation Barbarossa: why Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was his greatest mistake

A Red Cross worker in the United States, 1918

Spanish flu: the virus that changed the world

Women 'take the air' in an attempt to ward off the Spanish Flu

"Far too little, too late": what happened when Spanish Flu hit Britain?

Adventure and archaeology in the golden age of Egyptology

The women who fought back against Hollywood

Spitfires under construction at the Vickers Supermarine works in Southampton, around 1940

The difficult birth of the Spitfire – and how the WW2 fighter almost missed the battle of Britain

Rivalries and romances: couples that shook up history

The space race: everything you wanted to know

The space race: everything you wanted to know

The big questions of LGBTQ history

US marines advance up Iwo Jima's beaches

Second World War

The battle for Iwo Jima: why did it happen and why was it so hard fought?

Chaos & communism: China’s 1949 revolution

An Athenian red-figure kylix (cup) dating from around 510–500 BC depicts a young pentathlete pulling his older lover towards him for a kiss. In many of the city-states of ancient Greece, sex between a man and a youth was an accepted – even idealised – form of love, its virtues extolled in works by writers including Plato. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history

Is “Blitz Spirit” a myth?

Lord Fiske, chairman of the Decimal Currency Board, makes a purchase at a Woolworths using the new currency on Decimal Day, 15 February 1971

Decimal Day: when Britain said farewell to the shilling

The forgotten mothers of civil rights leaders

A decoy rubber tank such as those used by the Allies during WW2.

Masters of disguise: the story of the Allies' WW2 'Ghost Army'

Sex, romance and rights: women's lives since 1950

Norman cavalry on the charge in the Bayeux Tapestry. (Image by Bettmann/Getty Images)

Why the Nazis fell in love with the Bayeux Tapestry

Volunteers shovel sand in Fulham in 1941, filling bags used to protect windows from bomb blasts. Our clichés of the Blitz don’t tell the whole story, writes Lucy Worsley. (Photo by Mary Evans)

Lucy Worsley on Blitz Spirit: the courageous stories of six Londoners

Adolf Hitler. (Photo by Heinrich Hoffmann/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Second World War

Your guide to Adolf Hitler: key facts about the Nazi dictator

1962: London’s big freeze

Cary Grant: from humble beginnings to Hollywood icon

Blitz spirit or broken morale?

QuizHow well do you know Year 9 history?