Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

The 'Iron Duke' steam locomotive with railway workers

The history of railways in Britain: from the first steam trains to the rail revolution.

6 articles about…the Victorian era

Chaos & communism: China’s 1949 revolution.

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)

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history.

Is “Blitz Spirit” a myth?.

View of a gay pride parade in Boston, Massachusetts, c1977. (Photo by Spencer Grant/Getty Images)

From the ancient world to the 1969 Stonewall Riots: a brief guide to LGBT+ history.

Dr Jenna Dittmar, who has been studying medieval skeletons, reveals what her findings can tell us about injuries and violence in the era. (Image by Getty Images)

Fatal accidents and violent injuries in the Middle Ages.

Lord Fiske, chairman of the Decimal Currency Board, makes a purchase at a Woolworths using the new currency on Decimal Day, 15 February 1971

Decimal Day: when Britain said farewell to the shilling

Paul Delaroche's impression of Lady Jane Grey's execution

Who was Lady Jane Grey? The tragic story of the 'Nine Days Queen'

Dark side of fashion: a 1910 portrait of a woman wearing a hat adorned with ostrich plumes and a stuffed bird. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, owning hats like this was a sign of status for many women. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

A hatful of horror: the Victorian headwear craze that led to mass slaughter

How slavery fuelled the British empire.

Aerial view reconstruction drawing of Maiden Castle

A brief guide to the British Iron Age

17th-century London: a city shaped by catastrophe.

Daily life in ancient Egypt: everything you wanted to know.

Volunteers shovel sand in Fulham in 1941, filling bags used to protect windows from bomb blasts. Our clichés of the Blitz don’t tell the whole story, writes Lucy Worsley. (Photo by Mary Evans)

Lucy Worsley on Blitz Spirit: the courageous stories of six Londoners.

1962: London’s big freeze.

Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the US

Elizabeth BlackwellThe ‘first female doctor’, who entered medicine to prove a point

Blitz spirit or broken morale?.

An account of the story of James Allen, whose sex at birth was revealed only by an autopsy conducted after their death

'Female husbands': the secret lives of 18th-century transgender pioneers.

Smokey the bear is presented with a firefighter's helmet

The paratrooper, the poet's pet and the real Winnie: 10 famous bears in history

Sutton Hoo helmet Anglo-Saxon

The discovery at Sutton Hoo: when the Dark Ages were lit up.

QuizHow well do you know Year 9 history?.

Queen Victoria smiling

Q&ADid Queen Victoria really say "We are not amused"?

Rich vs poor in Regency Britain.

A scene from an early rugby union game

The history of rugby: when was the sport invented?

Spectacular discoveries at Sutton Hoo.

The inner courtyard of the old pottery factory at Gladstone Pottery Museum, with its five towering bottle ovens. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

History explorerThe Gladstone Pottery Museum.

The Persian empire: everything you wanted to know.

Rebuilding Europe after WW2.

‘Inkhorn’ was the term for an inkwell made out of a small horn and became a nickname for the new words being created by playwrights and poets, such as William Shakespeare. (Photo by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

The evolution of the English language