Period

Queen Victoria

The Victorians and the British Empire: a brief guide and timeline

Catherine Merridale on Lenin. (Image by Getty Images)

Editor’s pick: Lenin’s revolutionary train journey

(L to R) Isaac Newton, Henry VIII and Bal Gangadhar Tilak

How did people cope with ‘lockdowns’ of the past? And were they really all so productive?

A reconstruction of a Viking church

Vikings in America: the Europeans who arrived 500 years before Columbus

A 19th-century engraving. A young woman plays a harp, singing a duet with a man holding the music book, Duets de L’Amour. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

A survivor’s guide to Georgian marriage

19th century advert for snuff

Q&A What was snuff?

A cartoon depicting the Duke of Wellington, who demands attention outside a house, while the Duke of Argyll, inside with Harriette Wilson, pretends not to recognise him.

Georgian Britain: sex in high places

Gary Oldman plays Winston Churchill in the 2018 Oscar winner 'Darkest Hour'.

Think piece Our dangerous devotion to the Second World War

King George III

The decline of George III

James Holland tells the story of the dramatic Allied assault on the island of Sicily in the Second World War. (Image by Getty Images)

Second World War

The battle for Sicily, 1943

A portrait of Russian empress Catherine the Great

Hypocrite, reactionary, usurper, sex maniac: is Catherine the Great’s reputation justified?

Emma Griffin tackles questions about Britain’s Industrial Revolution. (Image by Getty Images)

Industrial revolution

The Industrial Revolution: everything you wanted to know

Tim Grady gives a lecture exploring the varied experiences of German Jews in the First World War. (Image by Getty Images)

First World War

German Jews in WW1

Edward Brooke-Hitching discusses some of history’s strangest literary curiosities. (Image by Getty Images)

Bizarre books and macabre manuscripts

A portrait of Samuel Pepys, English writer and diarist. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Samuel Pepys