LGBTQ+ history

RuPaul – who produces and presents the reality TV show bearing his name – performs during a Gay Rights March in Washington, DC, April 1993. Over 500,000 LGBTQ+ activists and allies participated in a gathering organised to end discrimination. (Photo by Porter Gifford/Liaison)

From Fanny and Stella to Ru Paul’s Drag Race: a short history of drag

Berlin by night: Haus Vaterland on Potsdamer Platz during the 1930s. It contained the largest cafe in the world, a major cinema and numerous theme restaurants. (Photo by Getty Images)

The gay MPs who opposed appeasement

Hungarian Jews arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1944

Editor’s pick 9 top articles from the BBC World Histories archive to read right now

The police attempt to quell the crowd, and succeed only in inciting more violence. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

The Stonewall Riots: the flashpoint that launched the gay rights movement in the US

During his time in Oxford, Wilde fully embraced ‘aesthetic flair’: growing his hair long; dressing in flamboyant fashions and assuming exaggerated affectations. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

7 facts you (probably) didn’t know about Oscar Wilde

An Athenian red-figure kylix (cup) dating from around 510–500 BC depicts a young pentathlete pulling his older lover towards him for a kiss. In many of the city-states of ancient Greece, sex between a man and a youth was an accepted – even idealised – form of love, its virtues extolled in works by writers including Plato. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

General ancient history

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history

Young people celebrate outside the boarded-up Stonewall Inn after riots over the weekend of June 27, 1969. (Photo by Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images)

Stonewall and the fight for gay rights

People outside the Stonewall Inn attempt to block police arrests, 28 June 1969. The crowd did not disperse until 4am the following morning (New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images)

Out of the closets and into the streets: the legacy of the Stonewall Riots

Gentleman Jack, Suranne Jones as Anne Lister (Photo by BBC/Lookout Point/Jay Brooks)

Gentleman Jack

A portrait of Anne Lister

The real ‘Gentleman Jack’: the secret life of Anne Lister, Britain’s ‘first modern lesbian’

Record producer Joe Meek

Joe Meek: the life and legacy of the British record producer

A 15th-century detail from the Fountain of Youth, Piedmont, Italy. (Image by De Agostini/Getty Images)

Sexing up history: how to study and tell the history of sex

A Campaign for Homosexual Equality rally held in London’s Trafalgar Square in 1974. The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 helped pave the way for activism such as this in the 1970s, says Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite. (Corbis via Getty Images)

The 1967 Sexual Offences Act: a landmark moment in the history of British homosexuality

Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde in 'The Happy Prince'.

The Happy Prince: Rupert Everett on Oscar Wilde’s life in exile

British troops marching in celebration of Bastille Day, c1944. (FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

The Library On the same side: homosexuals during the Second World War