Social history

The opening of the Great Exhibition by Queen Victoria on 1 May 1851. (The Print Collector/Getty Images)

A big day in history: Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition at the famous Crystal Palace

The future King George VI (1895-1952) as a baby, 1895. The name 'George' appears in the list of the top 10 boys' names both today and a century ago. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

What’s in a name? A brief history of baby name trends from the Anglo-Saxons to today

Members of Preston Ladies' Football Club (formerly Dick, Kerr’s Ladies) pose while carrying out leg exercises during practice, March 1937. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

First World War

1921: the year when football banned women

The ninth-century Alfred Jewel, adorned with the inscription: "Alfred ordered me to be made". This masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon art is thought to have been an aestel, a pointer used to follow text. (Picture by Alamy)

10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history

Expelled Germans leaving Poland's western territories

Second World War

After VE Day: The war without an end

Tourists at Stonehenge

General prehistory

Stonehenge: a prehistoric tourist trap

Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring on the balcony of the Reichs Chancellery, Berlin. One British journalist recalled how, in 1933, Göring began an attack against the foreign press unlike any he had previously witnessed. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Second World War

Reporting on Hitler: how foreign correspondents in Nazi Germany battled to expose the truth

Paul Morland (Photo by Fran Monks)

How population has shaped world history

Portrait of theologian and Bible translator John Wycliffe (c1330–84). (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

The murderous history of Bible translations

History graduate Steve Humphries' 1998 film explores the stories of women who worked in Magdalene laundries such as St Mary's Training School, Dublin (pictured here in 1935–38). (Photo by BNPS)

How my history degree led to my dream job

Elizabeth II and Prince Philip with their third son, Prince Edward, on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Royal mothers and childbirth: a brief history

Japanese troops celebrate the capture of a British artillery position, Hong Kong, December 1941 (Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

The lion and the rising sun: Britain and Japan’s 400-year relationship

Attempted assassination of Queen Victoria (1819-1901). On the evening of Wednesday 10 June 1840 Victoria and Prince Albert were travelling in a carriage along Constitution Hill near Buckingham Palace, London, when Edward Oxford fired a pistol at the Queen

The man who tried to assassinate Queen Victoria

The runners at the two mile mark at the back of Greenwich Park.

A brief history of marathons