Social history

George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla

Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla: the history behind The Current War

Everything you wanted to know about the church in medieval England – Nicholas Orme podcast

The church in medieval England: everything you wanted to know

Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier’s painting portrays the Declaration of the Rights of Man

How progressive was the French Revolution?

A late 18th-century painting depicting the execution of Marie Antoinette in 1793. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The smile revolution against the Reign of Terror

An illustration of the head of Louis XVI

Guillotined in the French Revolution: the bloody story through 7 severed heads

Camille and Lucile Desmoulins

How the architects of the ‘Terror’ after the French Revolution ended up among its victims

The vanquishers of the Bastille before the Hôtel de Ville, 14 July 1789. Found in the Collection of Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

What triggered the French Revolution?

The decapitation machine now known as the guillotine was not a French invention and wasn't invented by Joseph Guillotin. (Image by Getty Images)

Q&A Did the French invent the guillotine?

Raphael Cormack discusses the golden age of Cairo’s nightlife scene in the 1920s, and some of the enterprising women who dominated it. (Image by Getty Images)

The glamour & danger of Cairo’s 1920s nightlife scene

A portrait of William Barnes. The accomplished linguist wanted to adopt a form of English purged of foreign imports

National English: the language that would save England

A fresco depicting St Nicholas receiving the sick. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Post pandemic: how the years after the Black Death briefly became a ‘golden age’ for medieval women

Siân Rees shares the story of an eccentric Victorian vicar who invented a new language to try and solve the problems of 19th-century England. (Image by Getty Images)

Glee-man, high-deedy & bendsome: a language to save England

Jacqueline Riding discusses the life and work of the famed artist and satirist William Hogarth, and explores how his many engravings and portraits charted the morals and vices of the 18th century. (Image by Getty Images)

Hogarth: the chronicler of the 18th century

Stephen Tuffnell delves into the Klondike gold rush, a two-year whirlwind that brought at least 30,000 prospectors to the remote Yukon in search of glory and gold. (Image by Getty IMages)

Digging into the Klondike gold rush

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