20th Century - Getty Images

20th Century

Singer Paul Robeson rehearses at a piano in 1958. He had a unifying outlook, observing that "neither suffering nor compassion is confined to one face." (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

My history hero: Paul Robeson (1898–1976)

British troops go over the top of the trenches during the Battle of the Somme, 1916. The Somme was one of the bloodiest clashes of the First World War, causing more than one million casualties over five months. (Photo by Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

First World War

The First World War: Was it worth it?

Actors dressed as Tommies mark the centenary of the start of the battle of the Somme at Manchester Piccadilly station, July 2016. (Photo by Alamy)

First World War

Opinion: “The First World War centenary has been a lost opportunity”

St Basil's Cathdral, Moscow. (Photo by Dreamstime)

The spy who changed the Cold War

Crowds march through the streets of Chicago to hear Martin Luther King speak at the Illinois Rally for Civil Right on 21 June 1964

Seymour Hersh on the US civil rights movement and the Vietnam War

The remains of a 1940 naval battle in Narvik, Norway – several battles between German and Norwegian forces took place in the Ofotfjord in the spring of 1940. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)

The Navy and the battle for Britain in 1940

Men sealing cases of Rowntree’s Elect Cocoa, York, Yorkshire, 1893. (Photo by Borthwick Institute/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Chocolate and empire: from the land where the cocoa grows

William Beveridge was determined to fight the five "giant evils" of "want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness." (Photo by Hans Wild/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

My history hero: William Beverage (1879–1963)

The LibraryIan Kershaw on the trials of writing modern history

Charles de Gaulle reconsidered

A First World War silk screened poster c1918 showing a frightening German soldier holding a bloodied bayonet. Caption reads: "Beat back the Hun with Liberty Bonds". (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

First World War

Why did the Allies call Germans 'Huns' during World War I?

Britons under Nazi rule podcast

Britons under Nazi rule

Nurses serve lunch to patients at a Birmingham hospital, 1939. (Photo by Humphrey Spender/Picture Post/Getty Images)

What was healthcare like in Britain before the NHS?

Composite image of famous women: Cleopatra, Marie Curie, Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame CJ Walker, Jane Austen, Emmeline Pankhurst, Ethel Smyth, the Virgin Mary, Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Diana, Princess of Wales, Amelia Earhart.

100 women who changed the world

Jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis, shown here in 1969, was central to the story of jazz. (Photo by Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images)

My history hero: Miles Davis (1926–91)

Australian PoWs in a camp at the Sumatran city of Pekanbaru, c1945. More than 80,000 forced labourers, including PoWs, died during the construction of Sumatran railway, most the victims of disease, starvation and maltreatment. (Photo by State Library of Victoria)

The Sumatran Railway: the forgotten death railway

The ‘Princes in the Tower’: Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, disappeared in mysterious circumstances following the death of their father, King Edward IV. (The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

6 notorious unsolved crimes from history

British former field marshal Douglas Haig, inspects poppies before Armistice Day, October 1922. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Remembering the First World War: blood, poppies and poetry

Allied soldiers with captured prisoners of war after the battle of Amiens during the First World War, 1918. (Photo by Authenticated News/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Remembering the battle of Amiens

Britain’s foreign policy secrets

Podcast with Jonathan Ruffle

The Tommies' final acts

Rethinking 20th-century Britain

A photograph of Nelson Mandela. Peter Hain told the History Extra podcast about the South African leader’s remarkable achievements in the face of tremendous adversity. (Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

Peter Hain on Nelson Mandela: “A symbol for good leadership in the world”

Nelson Mandela podcast

Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary life

Nelson Mandela

Mandela: the 20th century’s greatest leader?

The murder of the Romanovs

People approach the VI Lenin Stadium, now known as the Luzhniki Stadium, in Moscow, in 1956. (Photo by James Whitmore/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

The history of Luzhniki Stadium, home of the 2018 football World Cup final

Britain’s refugee camps

With its huge bell and five-storey pagoda, Sensoji Temple is one of Tokyo's most popular –and venerable – landmarks. (Photo by Mike Hewitt - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

My favourite place: Tokyo, Japan

Historian David Edgerton. (Photographed by Fran Monks for BBC History Magazine)

Books interview with David Edgerton: "We need to tackle British history as we would the turbulent story of Germany”