Social history

Portrait of Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII’s most successful queen?

York Minster's rose window features 16th-century Tudor Roses white on red (left) and Lancastrian Roses, red

A brief history of the English rose

Left: Hungarian Jews arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau, in German-occupied Poland, in June 1944. Between May and July that year, more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the camp complex. Right: Prisoners at Dachau celebrate the liberation of the camp by US soldiers on 29 April 1945. The camp was used again after the war to house SS personnel awaiting trial, and then German refugees. (Photos by Getty Images and Alamy)

Second World War

Aftermath of the Holocaust: how Europe dealt with the crimes of the Third Reich

Paris rejects the red flag on 25 February 1848. Found in the Collection of Musée Carnavalet, Paris. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The death of a dream: why Europe’s great year of revolution in 1848 failed

A contemporary illustration of the Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 – an event that helped create the idea of 'revolution' as we know it today. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Fighting for freedom: the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution

Paul Stephenson and Guy Bailey

The great British civil rights scandal: the Bristol bus boycott

A miniature from the Codex Justinianus

Plague, famine and sudden death: 10 dangers of the medieval period

Phyllis Schlafly

The woman who opposed equality with men: Phyllis Schlafly and the real history behind Mrs. America

Winston Churchill gives his famous v-sign. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

From Winston Churchill to the Bengal famine: are we in denial about our role in WW2?

A family comprising several generations of enslaved people. Resistance, common throughout the history of slavery, ranged from slow working to violent fights for freedom (Universal History Archive/Gertty Images)

Freedom fighters: the enslaved people who fought for the abolition of slavery

Huge sun setting over power lines and palm trees in California. (Photo by Getty Images)

California’s century of change

The ship ‘Jesus of Lübeck’ was used in John Hawkins’ infamous early slaving voyages, some of which were sponsored by Elizabeth I. (Image by Alamy)

Were there slaves in Elizabethan England?

Carved Pictish Stone in the Meigle Museum east of Blairgowrie, Scotland. (Photo by Alamy)

General ancient history

The Picts

'The last Day of Pompeii', 1833. Briullov, Karl Pavlovich (1799-1852). Found in the collection of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Pompeii: a remarkable window into ancient Roman life

A view of Mount Everest

Mystery on Everest: did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit in 1924?