Culture

Tourists at Stonehenge. We have no better idea today than 200 years ago what the people who erected these sarsens truly believed. (Getty Images)

General prehistory

Prehistoric religion: a pagan riddle we will never solve?

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Victorian singer, performer and entrepreneur Emily Soldene

Adventures of a Victorian actor . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This red-figure pottery depicts a story involving Helen of Troy. Greek tragedies posed their audiences an awkward question: what would you do if you were in a similar situation? Meanwhile, comedy gave satirists a channel through which to cut Athens' political heavies down to size. (DEA/G.NIMATALLAH/De Agostini/Getty Images)

Ancient Greek theatre and the Athenian identity

Adolf Hitler stands with his back to a statue of Discobolos, the Discus Thrower

The classics and racial hatred: how the far right hijacked the ancient world

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Historian Alex Von Tunzelmann. (Photographed by Fran Monks for BBC History Magazine)

Alex Von Tunzelmann “Debates about statues are often posed in simplistic primary colours” . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Statue of Liberty against a blue sky

Q&A Was the Statue of Liberty designed specifically for the United States?

Ornate water gardens of the ancient fortress of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka

General ancient history

From Nan Madol to Karakorum: 7 cities that history forgot

A plaque which decorated the palace of the Benin Obas, The Obas butchers sacrificing a cow, the most prestigious animal sacrifice

Benin: a kingdom cast in bronze, brought to ruin by Britain

A phantasmagoria by Belgian entertainer Etienne-Gaspard Robert, whose stage name was Etienne Robertson, 1797. (Photo by Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Phantasmagoria: creating the ‘ghosts’ of the Enlightenment

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Dr Rory Naismith answers listener questions on Britain in the early Middle Ages. (Image from Getty Images)

Early Medieval Britain: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Walter Scott: an engraving after a painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence of the Scottish poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott

Walter Scott: the man who invented Scotland

Laurence Olivier pictured in New York, 1933. “In my young mind he was theatrical royalty – almost a kind of monarch,” says Steven Berkoff. (Image by Getty Images)

History hero Steven Berkoff chooses Laurence Olivier (1907–89)

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Martin Johnes tackles listener questions about the history of modern Wales, from the Industrial Revolution to devolution. (Image from Getty Images)

Modern Welsh history: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Alex Renton shares the story of his own family’s involvement in the slave trade, and considers how best to deal with this unwanted inheritance. (Image from Getty Images)

The slave trade: a family history . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tokyo Olympics 1964: Yoshinori Sakai prepares to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony. Born on the day that the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, he was a symbol of Japan’s postwar reconstruction and peace

Tokyo Olympics 1964: the Games that defined Japan