Social history

London crowds celebrating the signing of the armistice at the end of the First World War.

First World War

5 things you need to know about Armistice Day

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 Ru Paul’s Drag Race: a short history of drag

Shoppers in Liverpool during the 1960s

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

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

East Germans crowd around and on the Berlin Wall the day after the gates opened for free movement in 1989

What happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

The Parthenon Sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, on display at the British Museum. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

8 facts about the Elgin Marbles

Fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day c1800

A very short history of bonfire night

An illustration of the Gunpowder Plot principal conspirators, copied from a rare print published at the time (5 November 1605). (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images).

Bonfire Night: a 400-year-old political hot potato

George Frederic Watts' 1846 painting 'Alfred Inciting the Saxons to Prevent the Landing of the Danes'

Michael Wood “As a racism row rumbles on, is it time to retire the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’?”

A c1860 depiction of Wentworth Works steel manufacturer in Sheffield

Why Britain punched above its weight

Halloween postcard

10 things you didn’t know about the history (and mystery) of Halloween

King John out hunting

8 things you (probably) didn’t know about medieval elections

Rotten boroughs cartoon

9 general election curiosities through history

A man attacks the Berlin Wall with a pickaxe on the night of November 9th, 1989 as news spread rapidly that the East German Government would now start granting exit visas to anyone who wanted to go to the West. The announcement was misinterpreted as meaning the border was now open and East German border guards were unable to stop the rush of people to the Wall. Within hours people were smashing sections of the Wall with their own hand tools and these first cracks in the Wall led to the complete opening of the border within days. (Photo by robert wallis/Corbis via Getty Images)

In pictures: remembering the Berlin Wall 30 years on

Trick photograph. (Photo by LM Melander and Brothers) entitled 'The Haunted Lane,' depicts a pair of men terrified by a female ghost, mid-to-late 19th century. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

5 historic hauntings for Halloween