Social history

St George’s Day: 11 things you might not know about England’s patron saint

Opulent headquarters East India House in London, 1850. From inside this grand building, the East India Company directors oversaw the governance of India and its associated territories (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

1838: A year in the life of the British empire

Scientists monitor control panels aboard HMS Campania during the countdown to the test of the first British atomic bomb in the Montebello Islands off north-west Australia on 3 October 1952. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Britain’s nuclear past: the fallout from the High Explosive Research programme

The 30th Annual Academy Awards, Los Angeles, 1958. (Ralph Crane/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

13 remarkable moments in the history of the Oscars

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Bloodied feet, outrageous breasts and the sinister power of a hair cut: a history of the body

Two garden gnomes on grass

A brief history of garden gnomes

The road to equality Protesters march in New York City, 1976. The gay rights movement in the US is one of LGBTQ history’s most famous stories. (Photo by Granger/Shutterstock)

What are the challenges of telling LGBTQ history?

Babies from a nursery are walked in a pram, c1953

A nation in numbers: 100 years of British life in 7 statistics

Roland Philipps tells the story of Mathilde Carré

Second World War

Traitor or triple agent? The WW2 spy Mathilde Carré

17th century engraving showing the execution by hanging of four witches. (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images)

Quiz: Would you have been accused of witchcraft?

A broker looks at his screens at Frankfurt's stock exchange on 15 September 2008. (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/AFP/Getty Images)

The 2008 financial crisis explained

A 1782 cartoon by James Gillray that depicts Buller as ‘Judge Thumb’. (Photo by Library of Congress)

Q&A Why do we say ‘rule of thumb’?

The bigamy trial that scandalised Georgian England

Young woman gets hair cut in to a bob

A brief history of changing hairstyles

Professor Matthew Restall tackles listener questions and popular search queries about the central American civilisation. (Image by Getty Images)

General ancient history

The Maya: everything you wanted to know