Period

Has Britain always looked backwards?.

A woodcut of the brain from Andreas Vesalius’s groundbreaking 1543 treatise On the Fabric of the Human Body

The Elizabethans' complex relationship with mental wellbeing.

Episode 6Cultures lost and found.

How the Persians were written out of history.

Oscar Wilde pictured around 1882.

Oscar Wilde's tragic end

Robert Louis Stevenson, the 19th-century English poet and novelist perhaps best known for his books 'Treasure Island' and the 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson: novelist, playwright, poet, traveller.

1842 self-portrait of Sarah Biffin

The armless artist who wowed Queen Victoria.

Shady deals & rigged elections: the changing face of corruption.

A woman reading a vintage thesaurus

Q&AWho wrote the first thesaurus?

A stained glass portrait of Dr Samuel Johnson in 17 Gough Square, London Inns court c1989.

"A useful time-capsule of Georgian life": Samuel Johnson and his remarkable dictionary.

Plastic surgery: transformed by WW1.

The Queen's century of change.

Empire of blood.

Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II in 2006 film 'The Queen'

Screen QueenElizabeth II on film

Episode 5An identity crisis?.

View of Windsor Castle's East Terrace

Fit for a queenElizabeth II's royal residences.

Queen Elizabeth II, in March 2022 - the year of her platinum jubilee (Photo by Getty Images)

QuizQueen Elizabeth II and her reign

Buzz Aldrin salutes the US flag during the 1969 lunar landing

How has the world changed during the reign of Elizabeth II?.

Fairy queens & giantesses: pagan goddesses in Christian Europe.

The birth of insulin: a scientific drama.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip mark the diamond jubilee in 2012 by watching the Jubilee River Pageant, where a seven-mile flotilla sails past them (Photo by Eddie Mullholland - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

From silver to platinum: a history of Queen Elizabeth II's jubilees.

Dracula at 125: what can a vampire tell us about Victorian Britain?.

Queen Elizabeth II, in March 2022 - the year of her platinum jubilee (Photo by Getty Images)

Britain's golden jubilees: from George III to Elizabeth II.

Witchcraft: everything you wanted to know.

Alice Roberts on unearthing the Romans, Vikings & Anglo-Saxons.

A painting of Jean Thurel, a French soldier whose life spanned three centuries

Jean Thurel: the oldest soldier in history?

Marriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête.

What great paintings sayMarriage à-la-mode: 2. The Tête à Tête by William Hogarth, c1743–45.

Episode 4Religion and belief.

Bronze figure of Sulis, the Celtic goddess associated with medicine, fertility and healing. (Image by Getty Images)

Religion in Roman Britain: spreading the word of the gods.

Max Schreck took the title role in the 1922 German silent film 'Nosferatu', inspired by Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. The film enjoys a cult following. (Photo by ullstein picture / ullstein picture via Getty Images)

“Ghoul-like beyond nightmare dream, they were the living dead”: belief in Vampires through history.