Period

British nurse Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), aka the 'Lady with the lamp', makes her rounds during the Crimean War. (Photo by Illustrated London News/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The lady with the stats: how Florence Nightingale’s nursing by numbers is still influencing today’s healthcare

Midwives and babies in the sun

Midwifery and childbirth: a historical A–Z guide

Mixed-race babies born after the Second World War

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini give a fascist salute

A dictator’s death: how Stalin, Hitler, Mao and other self-styled strongmen met their ends

Politics, Roman style

Margaret Thatcher enters Downing Street

How to win an election: 25 general elections and where they were won – and lost

Stretcher bearers at Passchendaele

The forgotten triumphs of Passchendaele

A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

12 facts about the Stuarts

Eleanor of Aquitaine: myth and reality

A portrait of Louis XIV in 1701.

From musketeers to Macron: 10 remarkable facts about the Sun King, Louis XIV

Rotten boroughs cartoon

9 general election curiosities through history

How the American Revolution created a global storm

A voter in a British election in 1923.

A new political climate? The UK's long tradition of winter elections

Richard Nixon gives a thumbs-up

Presidents under pressure: the resignation of Richard Nixon and the impeachment case against Trump

German submarine on mission in the Atlantic ocean, 1942/1943 (Photo by ullstein bild via Getty Images)

World War Two’s secret heroes

Tourists at Stonehenge

Stonehenge: a prehistoric tourist trap

The Cunard liner Lusitania

How did Britain react to the sinking of the Lusitania?

Queen Elizabeth I

"All unperfect and incorrect”: Tracy Borman on the discovery of an Elizabethan gem

Ragnar Lothbrok. (Illustration by Georgie Gozem for BBC History Magazine)

Ragnar Lothbrok: the legend of the immortal Viking and his sons

Asians in 1980s Britain

A 15th-century miniature from 'La Vraye Histoire du Bon Roy Alixandre'. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

6 Christmas party tips from the past

How America captured Christmas

A family at the seaside in the 1960s.

In pictures: English life in the 1960s, photographed by Tony Ray-Jones

A stained glass depiction of the nativity.

The history of the nativity: how much is known about the birth of Jesus?

Edwardian hat pin head found on the Thames shore. (Photo by Bloomsbury)

Secrets of the river

A statue of Leif Eriksson, Erik the Red's son, who sailed to North America, c1000 AD. (Image by RF/Getty Images)

Russia, North America and the Middle East: where did the Vikings visit to trade and raid?

A medieval new England: the Anglo-Saxons’ eastern odyssey

Lord Mountbatten at a desk

Lord Mountbatten: Did Prince Philip’s uncle attempt to lead a coup against Harold Wilson’s government?

Einstein on the run

Einstein on the run: when the brilliant scientist fled to England

Knole, a house on an epic scale that's now run by the National Trust.

ExploreKnole: the grandest of family homes