20th Century - Getty Images

20th Century

Illustration by Hugh Cowling

Will history survive the digital age?

Czar Nicholas II with family. (Getty Images)

Books interview with Robert Service: "Nicholas II brought the Russian Revolution upon his own head"

The Tibetan plateau lies at an altitude averaging over 4,500 metres above sea level

In the footsteps of Sir Francis Younghusband's 1903 invasion of Tibet

Colourful streets of the Bo-Kaap district in Cape Town South Africa

ExploreCape Town: Africa’s ‘Mother City’

British leader of the Labour Party Clement Attlee leaves the Treasury, 27 May 1945. (Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

My history hero: Clement Attlee (1883–1967)

American president Franklin D Roosevelt

Second World War

Life of the Week: President Franklin D Roosevelt

Giuseppe Garibaldi in Naples, Italy, 1861. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

God, gangs and Garibaldi

Vintage family photo album and documents. (Getty Images)

How to become a local historian

Wrought iron lace adorns many old buildings and houses in the streets of New Orleans. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: New Orleans, Louisiana

Barcelona. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: Barcelona

Two men carrying old woman as they migrate, following the Partition of India in 1947

10 historical turning points for modern India

Young women working in a textile mill in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1943

Famine and freedom: how the Second World War ignited India

Martin Luther King (centre) rides the Montgomery bus with Rev Glenn Smiley of Texas. (Getty Images)

The LibraryWhat was history’s most dramatic year?

Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medalists in the 200-metre run at the 1968 Olympic Games, engage in a victory stand protest against unfair treatment of blacks in the United States. They refuse to recognise the American flag and national anthem. (Getty Images)

The fight for Black America

Photo of Woody Guthrie c1970. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

My history hero: Woody Guthrie

Bethlehem. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: Bethlehem, West Bank

Fidel Castro: in pictures

(Photo by iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Q&AWhy do Americans call the British ‘limeys’?

First World War

What is the origin of the phrase 'to blow smoke up someone's arse'?

Leopold II statue. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: the Belgian coast

The end game: Britain’s role in Afghanistan 1947–50

History quiz – Dames, JFK and the house of Gonzaga

My history hero: Sam Cooke (1931–64)

Viscountess Nancy Astor on her election campaign in 1919. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

The LibraryWomen pioneers in parliament

Maya Angelou was “the ultimate boundary-breaker”, says Naga Munchetty. (Photo by Craig Herndon/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

My history hero: Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr (centre) at a UN Security Council meeting concerning the Suez crisis. (Photo by Lisa Larsen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Blood and sand: Suez, Hungary and the crisis that shook the world

Londoners read newspaper headlines about Britain's entry to the Common Market, January 1973. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The reluctant Europeans

Soviet missiles in Red Square during the May Day Parade of 1962, the year the world came closest to nuclear war. (Photo by Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images)

History explorer: the Cold War

"Welcome home, Charlie": Chaplin’s postwar return to London

Emil Zátopek. (Photo by Universal/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

The running revolutionary