Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

When poison pen letters caused chaos.

Miniature of Ecgfrith, king of the English, along with his bishop Trumwine, visiting Cuthbert at Lindisfarne

How the Kingdom of Northumbria changed Anglo-Saxon England

c1880, the Paris rugby team.

When Vichy France banned rugby

5 things to expect at the Victorian seaside

Painting depicting the Spanish Armada

Keep calm and carry on trading: how English merchants reacted to the Spanish Armada

What was the March on Washington?

Martin Luther King speaks in front of microphones, during the March on Washtington

"I Have A Dream": the speech that America couldn’t ignore

General History

“That’s the way to do it”: a two-minute history of Punch and Judy

A 1948 photograph of the House of Epidius Rufus in Pompeii. The structure had to be rebuilt after being damaged by Allied bombs during WWII (Photo by SuperStock/Alamy Stock Photo)

How were Pompeii and Herculaneum discovered?

What can the streets of Pompeii reveal about daily life in ancient Rome?

A 19th-century depiction of the market of Pompeii

PompeiiWhat was life like before the eruption of Vesuvius?

A 17th-century engraving of the Mount Vesuvius eruption of AD 79, by Athanasius Kircher (Photo by Shawshots/Alamy Stock Photo)

Your ultimate guide to Pompeii, plus 8 fascinating facts about the ancient Roman city

An illustration titled 'The first match of the British Ladies Football Club'

A brief history of women’s football: from Mary, Queen of Scots to the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Learning disabilities: an overlooked history.

An early Peace People march in Belfast’s Woodvale Park

What was the Peace People movement in Northern Ireland?

Joya Chatterji, emeritus professor in the history of modern south Asia at the University of Cambridge (Photo by Abhishek Bali)

Joya Chatterji on 20th-century south Asia“The nation is a very novel idea, and imposing it on millions of people is hard work”

A portrait of Chevalier d’Éon presenting as a woma

Chevalièr d’Éon: the tale of an 18th-century gender non-conforming spy

A boy signs a petition against slavery (bottom left) in an 1826 satirical cartoon originally titled 'John Bull Taking a Clear View on the Negro Slavery Question', by R Cruikshank (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)

The children who fought for the abolition of slavery.

A view of the devastation caused by the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan on 6 August 1945, a bombed-out building in the foreground

Second World War

What happened to Hiroshima after it was bombed in 1945? How many people died?

How Barbie changed the world.

A Victorian family gathers around a graveside

Q&AWhat were Victorian burial societies and why were they formed?.

A 1569 portrait, thought to be of Helena Snakenborg (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

The Tudor travel bug: 6 artefacts that show the Tudors’ taste for travel.

Inflation hit Britain hard in the 1970s. Here activist Erin Pizz addresses a protest by housewives holdiing placards decrying rising food prices in July 1971

Q&AUK inflation: how does today’s economic crisis compare to the 1970s?.

How should we see the NHS's history on its 75th anniversary?

A man winces as he receives a flu vaccination

How Britain fell in love with the NHS.

Illustration of the Children's Crusade of 1212, from the Story of the British Nation, Volume 1, by Walter Hutchinson, c1920 (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

What was the Children’s Crusade, and did it actually happen?

The 16th-century painting, Triumph of Death, by Jan Brueghel the Elder depicts an army of skeletons ravaging the Earth (Photo by akg-images)

6 moments when diseases drastically altered human history.

The temple of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá

General ancient history

Your guide to ancient Maya: from the writing system to the truth about ‘human sacrifice’

Guitarist David Crosby of the Byrds performs with his band in front of a large crowd at the Magic Mountain Music Festival on Mount Tamalpais, June 1967. (Image by © Henry Diltz/Corbis)

General History

From Ancient Greece to Glastonbury: a brief history of music festivals

Penal transportation to Australia: everything you wanted to know.