London’s history

The Great Fire of London

The Great Fire of London: how the ferocious blaze of 1666 destroyed the capital

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Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London

An engraving depicting a scene of chaos at Bethlem Royal Hospital

Bethlem Royal Hospital: why did the infamous Bedlam asylum have such a fearsome reputation?

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Great Fire of London quiz – how much do you know?

Photograph of John Snow in 1856

The Broad Street cholera outbreak: how bad was it and how was it contained?

Actress Sarah Bernhardt, who was personally invited by Oscar Wilde to play the title role in the upcoming London premiere of his play, 'Salomé'.

6 of London theatre’s most notable historical scandals

An illustration of a group of supposed witches

A very brief history of witches by Suzannah Lipscomb

An illustration depicting the Great Fire of London. (Getty Images)

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Great Fire of London

A cartoon showing a man in a suit of armour on the moon

Q&A Did NASA really pick the brains of the Tower of London armoury when designing the first space suits?

Between 1613 and 1754, a legal loophole meant that on-the-spot marriages could be carried out in an area surrounding the Fleet Debtors’ Prison known as the ‘Liberties of the Fleet’. (Photo by Getty Images)

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the history of London

A portrait of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s rise from ‘upstart crow’ to England’s greatest playwright

'The Young Princes in the Tower', 1831. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Anne Boleyn, Beefeaters, Guy Fawkes and the princes: a brief history of the Tower of London

In c1500, the young Thomas Cromwell travelled from his humble Putney home to the great cities of Italy, as shown in our illustration. The connections he established on the Italian peninsula would prove key to his meteoric rise to power back in England. (Illustration by Sarah Young for BBC History Magazine)

Thomas Cromwell: the best Italian in all England

The opening ceremony of London’s Tower Bridge on 30 June 1894. The bridge became a symbol of London’s importance as a global maritime hub (Photo by Francis Frith/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Britain’s imperial landmarks: The empire on our doorsteps

Ross Poldark in London in the BBC's drama. The capital city was described in contemporary magazines and newspapers as the

From politics to pleasure gardens: the real history behind Poldark’s 18th-century London