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The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine

Social history

Gin Lane, a print issued in 1751 by painter and printmaker William Hogarth. It depicts the perceived evils of the consumption of gin. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The 18th-century craze for gin

The Monteagle letter, which shares a warning about the Gunpowder Plot. (National Archives)

In their own words: 6 of history’s most fascinating letters

Gustave Doré’s famous engraving

Was Victorian life really so grim? 5 reasons why the Victorians were ‘happy’

30th June 1963: Some of the many hundreds of supporters of the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and the Committee of 100 waiting outside Birch Grove, the country home of British prime minister Harold Macmillan, where he and American president John F Kennedy are having weekend talks. (Photo by Kent Gavin/Keystone/Getty Images)

Peter Hennessy on Britain in transition

Scores of people milled about the entrance to the Stock Exchange on 24 October 1929, as the market went through the greatest shake up in its history. It was a light tremor heralding the earthquake to come. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

The Wall Street Crash: the day the bubble burst

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

The French Revolution through 7 severed heads

Sir Nicholas Winton

Second World War

The ‘British Schindler’ who saved 669 children from the Nazis

Two women outside a book shop in Leicester Square, London, with paperback copies of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' by D H Lawrence, after a jury at the Old Bailey decided that it was not obscene. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover: how the ‘obscene’ book caused a moral storm

Illustration by Davide Bonazzi.

Second World War

The WW2 obsession: why the world can’t move on from 1945

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 the 1980s Aids crisis: a short history of drag

Rescue workers at the scene of the wrecked Pantglas Junior School at Aberfan, South Wales. (Getty Images)

Death under the black mountain: surviving the 1966 Aberfan disaster

A cartoon from 1862 shows a pair 'garroters' attacking a victim. (Photo by The Cartoon Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Gangs and knife-crime fears: how has Britain responded through history?

Setting a trap: East German soldiers construct the Berlin Wall, 13 August 1961. The barrier was an attempt to stop the flood of Germans fleeing from east to west – yet, as scores of audacious escape bids attest, it didn't entirely succeed. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Escape from East Berlin: an audacious bid to tunnel under the Berlin Wall

Half-timbered medieval cottages, Water Street, Lavenham, Suffolk, England, (Photo by Getty Images)

History explorer A wealth of history: Laversham, Sulfolk

Cardinal John Henry Newman

How to become a saint