Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

Part five in our 20-part series looking at decisive moments of the last 1,000 years in British history explores 1250–1299

Turning points1215: Magna Carta.

General History

7 real moments in history you might think are made up

Vintners in an ale house, 1642. From a broadsheet titled ‘Health to All’, artist unknown. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Did Oliver Cromwell ban Christmas? The Puritan assault on Christmas during the 1640s and 1650s

Three medieval carol singers, image dated 1911

Christmas carols: the history behind 9 festive favourites

St Columba. This Irish patron saint's influence on the Christian church was, and still is, felt much further afield

Medieval miracle worker: how St Columba transformed Christianity in Britain.

John Duval Gluck, Jr, 'the Santa Claus man', pictured left, visiting the General Post Office to promote the Santa Claus Association’s benefit show

The con man who saved Christmas.

Yugoslavia: the beginning of the end.

A Victorian Christmas card

HistoryExtra's Christmas history quiz

Black and white image of island prison, taken from the sky

The battle of Alcatraz, 1946: the most violent escape attempt in the prison’s history

Triumph against the odds: the 1821 Greek Revolution.

Anna Whitelock's Talking PointsFriends or enemies?.

Tom Smith's Surprise Cosaques, Christmas Crackers 1878. (Image by Getty)

The history of Christmas crackers

Schoolchildren in Liverpool have their Christmas party in an air raid shelter built into a railway arch

What was Christmas like in Britain during WW2?.

Q&AWhy do some people call the Irish famine ‘the Great Hunger’?

A woman slops here chamberpot from a window onto pedestrians in the street below in this woodcut

Were medieval cities really filthy?.

A statue in Kiev showing a Ukrainian player defeating a Third Reich eagle symbol at the Start stadium's entrance

Q&ADid Nazis guards really play a 'death match' against a Ukrainian football team?.

Sex lives of medieval people.

The Great Depression: everything you wanted to know.

Searching for WW1’s fallen soldiers.

A woman on a bike cycles in front of a castle

General History

A real castle for Christmas: 5 places to explore and stay this festive season

Colour: a human history.

Stranger danger? Xenophobia’s unexpected history.

British author Sathnam Sanghera

Sathnam SangheraBritain's Imperial Legacy: “It was painful to realise how my education had colonised me”.

The Irish famine: everything you wanted to know.

How Shakespeare inspired terrorists.

How the Greeks changed the world.

William Hogarth, seen in a self-portrait with his pug

William HogarthThe satirical artist inspired by the teachings of the Bible.

Shoppers in Liverpool during the 1960s

Q&AWhy is the shopping day after Thanksgiving called ‘Black Friday’?

Woman waving a union jack flag emblazoned with a swastika

In pictures: Interwar fascism.

The Ottoman “Age of Discovery”.