1920s

Articles about the history of the 1920s – on culture, entertainment, gangsters, prohibition and more

Helen Chandler, Mayo Methot and George Meeker, 1932.

Quiz How well do you know the silent movie era?

Tutankhamun’s golden funeral mask

Your guide to Tutankhamun, plus 8 fascinating facts

Four flapper women line up along a wall and chug bottles of liquor in the 1920s.

Flappers, sanitary pads and public drinking: was the 1920s a time of increased liberation for women?

Virginia Woolf, writer and critic. (Image by Getty Images)

Virginia Woolf: a brief guide to the writer’s life

British mystery writer Agatha Christie, c1926. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie

The bikini was showcased to the world for the first time in July 1946. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

8 historical events that happened in July

Princess Elizabeth 1939

The young Elizabeth II: life before she was Queen

The reconcilliation between Thomas Becket and Henry II. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

General History

From the handshake to the high-five: a brief history of gestures

Four women dressed in the perceived fashion of the roaring twenties in a 1954 musical called ‘The Boy Friend’. (Photo by Getty Images)

How the ‘Roaring Twenties’ myth obscures the making of modern Britain

Prohibition protesters parade in a car emblazoned with signs and flags calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment, which outlawed the production and consumption of alcohol in the United States. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

“A great social experiment”: a brief guide to prohibition

Members of Preston Ladies' Football Club (formerly Dick, Kerr’s Ladies) pose while carrying out leg exercises during practice, March 1937. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

First World War

1921: the year when football banned women

Chastity belt decorated with a flower design and a heart pierced with arrows. (SSPL/Getty Images)

General History

13 weird historical facts

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1922 in pictures: nationalists, navies, mountains and modernism

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Q&A: When were the first film trailers shown?

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Historical fiction and a US murder scandal