20th Century - Getty Images

20th Century

Hotel Lux: the guesthouse of world revolution.

Harold Wilson: the rock 'n' roll prime minister.

Paddy Mayne (left), a founding member of the SAS during WW2, and Jack O'Connell (right) who portrays Mayne in BBC drama SAS Rogue Heroes.

The real Paddy Mayne of SAS Rogue Heroes

Second World War

SAS Rogue HeroesThe true story behind the drama

St Paul's Cathedral photographed through the smoke after a night when the German air force bombed London

Second World War

"War's greatest picture"? Inside the night St Paul's Cathedral survived the Blitz

Portrait of Coch Bach y Bala

Who was ‘The Welsh Houdini’?Coch Bach y Bala, the legendary prison escape artist.

Holy sites of multiple religions stud Jerusalem’s skyline, including the Dome of the Rock (Photo by KiyechkaSo/Shutterstock)

“I don’t underestimate how difficult it is to satisfy everybody” | Simon Sebag Montefiore on writing the history of Jerusalem.

Lord Lucan and his wife Veronica, shortly after becoming engaged in 1963. It is thought that Lady Lucan was the intended target of the attack in 1974 (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Murder and vanishing without a trace: the mysterious case of Lord Lucan.

Germany's postwar reinvention.

The murders at Rillington Place: postwar London's grisliest crimes.

Nelson & Winnie: inside the Mandelas' marriage.

A mural in Bristol of activist Roy Hackett, one of the primary organisers of the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott (Photo by Steve Taylor ARPS/Alamy Stock Photo)

Hakim Adi | “Racism in Britain has a long history – but so does anti-racism”.

Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "Many are turning against prejudice. But we cannot be complacent".

One of the hostages of the Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980 escapes across the balcony (Photo by David Levenson/Keystone/Getty Images)

The Iranian Embassy siege of 1980: the six-day crisis that was the making of the SAS.

Joseph McCarthy: life of the week.

Frozen Charlotte dolls: the Victorian Barbie

London crowds celebrating the signing of the armistice at the end of the First World War.

First World War

Armistice Day: what does it commemorate? Why are poppies worn? Plus 4 more things you need to know

Lord Lucan: the vanishing earl.

Video podcastHow Stalin won WW2.

Charlotta Bass, the first black woman to be nominated to the US Vice Presidency

Charlotta Bass: the first woman of colour to run for US vice president

The Blitz: everything you wanted to know.

The Korean War: everything you wanted to know.

A vessel at sea comes across the mythical ghost ship The Flying Dutchman

General History

Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams

Imperial spectacle: inside Britain's 1924 'Empire Exhibition'.

Croydon Aerodome, pictured in 1926. Two years earlier, Matthews’ threat to sell his ‘Death Ray’ to a French party had sparked a dash to this airfield by investors determined to stop him. (Photo by Getty Images)

Amazing livesHarry Grindell Matthews: the strangely inventive mind behind the aerophone and Death Ray.

Video podcastWhy did people kill for Hitler?.

Why did people kill for Hitler?.

Emily Anderson. (Illustration by Cat O’Neil)

Amazing livesEmily Anderson: the secret life of Britain's most senior female wartime codebreaker.

Police chase demonstrators during the 1936 battle of Cable Street

When Mosley's fascists took on East End London and lost: the Battle of Cable Street explained

A hidden history of black civil rights