London’s history

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?

Keith Granville, managing director of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), holding a model of the Boeing 747 jet, with the new aircraft hangars under construction in the background, at Heathrow Airport, 17 March 1969. (Photo by Jim Gray/Keystone/Getty Images)

In pictures: the history of London’s Heathrow Airport

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)

The Library 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 "vortex of dissipation", says Hannah Greig. (Image Credit: BBC/Mammoth Screen/Robert Viglasky)

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

A 19th-century cricket match at the Kennington Oval. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

10 things you didn’t know about London’s sporting history

An 1870s illustration of a typical London artisan terraced houses with washhouses, privies and yards leading on to an alley, all dominated by railway viaducts. (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Victorian London’s East End: what can a foul murder tell us about life in the city?

Mona Baptiste, a Trinidad-born blues singer

“London is the place for me”: David Olusoga on the Windrush generation

A crowd admiring the artworks at an exhibition by the Royal Academy of Arts in Burlington House, London. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of London tourism since 1800