Animals

A goat pokes its head over the fence at a city farm near Greenland Dock, London, which is still home to the Surrey Docks Farm

Urban animals: the growth of city farms in 20th-century Britain

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Pod Jo Cormac WL

Parachuting monkeys & volcanic eruptions: an extraordinary Victorian zoo . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Visitors promenade alongside a lake with Surrey Zoological Gardens in the background, 1844 (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Victorian zoos Animal attraction in the 19th century

(Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

City of fur and feather: the animals of medieval London

St George lances a dragon

Tips from history How do you really kill a dragon?

Saint Michael and the DragonSaint Michael and the Dragon

General ancient history

Dragons From mythological beasts of history to the firebreathers of fantasy

David Attenborough with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, in a famous scene from 1979’s Life on Earth

BBC at 100 The rise of natural history television and David Attenborough

An emu stares into the camera

Q&A What was the Emu War?

Mowgli is surrounded by wolves in a 1937 illustration from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book

General History

Raised by wolves: the history of feral children

Cockfighting pit with crown surrounding a fight

General History

Feather beds, cockfights and midnight flights to the moon: 5 fascinating chapters in avian history

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Pod R and L Adkins WL

General History

Pets, pests & portents: birds through time . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A United Arab Emirates postage stamp issued in 1971 commemorating Laika, the Soviet dog who in 1957 became the first animal in orbit

Animals in space: the creatures who paved the way for human travel beyond Earth

Louis Wain, c1900, with one of his pet cats. Photo by Ernest H. Mills/Getty Images)

Louis Wain: the cat-loving artist who forever changed the way that we see our feline friends

Pod Lee Raye WL

Extinct animals of medieval Britain

Portrait of Maria Sibylla Merian, by Jacob Marrel, 1679 (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

General Early Modern

Maria Sibylla Merian: the artist who challenged the natural world