What's The Real History Behind Your Favourite Movies & TV Shows? - HistoryExtra

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Portrait of Madam CJ Walker, America's first female millionaire. (Photo courtesy of Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles)

Self Made: the real story of Madam CJ Walker, America’s first black female millionaire

Olivia Colman plays Elizabeth II

Netflix’s The Crown: the real history behind the series

Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in 'The Favourite'. (Photo by Twentieth Century Fox/Entertainment Pictures)

The best historical TV shows and films to stream right now

Al Pacino and Logan Lerman in Amazon Prime's 'Hunters'.

A historian’s review of Amazon’s “Holocaust revenge saga” Hunters

A still from Sam Mendes film '1917'

First World War

“A staggering tour de force – but an opportunity missed”: a historian’s review of the film 1917

An illustration depicting Governor Tryon and the Regulators, c1877.

What was the Regulator movement that features in Outlander?

Find out the real history behind your favourite TV shows

Browse expert articles on the real historical stories and people that inspired your favourite period dramas, from Netflix's The Crown to the BBC's Peaky Blinders and Vikings on Amazon Prime…

The cast of Belgravia

Belgravia

The Crown (© Netflix, Robert Viglasky)

The Crown

Peaky Blinders. (Photo by BBC/Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd/Tiger Aspect/Robert Viglasky)

Peaky Blinders

Katheryn Winnick as Lagertha in 'Vikings'. (Image by Alamy)

Vikings

Jenna Coleman as Victoria. (Image by ITV Pictures)

Victoria

The Spanish Princess, starring Charlotte Hope as Catherine of Aragon, charts the story of the woman who married into the Tudor dynasty. (Image credit: Starz)

The Spanish Princess

The Last Kingdom. (Carnival Films 2015/Kata Vermes)

The Last Kingdom

The cast of Downton Abbey in front of Highclere Castle. (Image by Alamy)

Downton Abbey

What's the real history behind your favourite movies?

Browse expert articles on the real history that inspired the best historical stories on the big screen

Timothée Chalamet as Prince Hal

The King

Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in 'The Favourite'. (Photo by Twentieth Century Fox/Entertainment Pictures)

The Favourite

'Yorktown' sustains a hit during the battle of Midway. The US aircraft carrier sank three days later but, by then, the Japanese had accepted that their attempt to land a war-winning blow had failed. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Midway

A still from Sam Mendes film '1917'

1917 (film)

TV and film on the HistoryExtra podcast

Listen to our interviews about the latest historical movies and TV…

Vikings on screen

Vikings on screen

Catherine the Great: fact and fiction

Gentleman Jack, Suranne Jones as Anne Lister (Photo by BBC/Lookout Point/Jay Brooks)

Gentleman Jack

Bernard Cornwell. (Photo by Felix Clay)

Bernard Cornwell on The Last Kingdom