Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

The International Brigades: fighting fascism in Spain.

The Glorious Revolution: everything you wanted to know.

This engraving by William Hogarth shows the final instalment of a sequence of artworks called 'The Four Stages of Cruelty' (1751). In it, the fictional Tom Nero is being dissected for anatomical studies at Cutlerian theatre near Newgate prison after being hanged for murder. Nero looks like the Dead-Alive, as though he can see and smell his own executed body on the dissection table. The chief physician sits in the centre on a high-backed chair, resembling a high court judge. He is surrounded by various medical men, including penal surgeons, who did gallows work. The skeletons of dissected criminals were usually refused a Christian burial and so were displayed as specimens, as can be seen top left and top right. (Photo by Guildhall Library/Getty Images)

Surviving the gallows: the Georgian hangings that didn't go to plan.

The colonial secrets of Britain’s stately homes.

Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and Princess Margaret as Prince Charming and Cinderella in a 1941 pantomime

Q&AWhat are the origins of the Christmas pantomime?

'Merry Christmas' Victorian illustration of Santa Claus holding toys and blowing on a trumpet, chromolithograph, 1915. (Illustration by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

Father Christmas and Santa Claus: a brief history of two Christmas champions

Ethiopia 1935: The real history behind The Shadow King.

David Olusoga“Desks went from a niche furniture item to the work station of millions”.

Zwarte Piet: the history behind the Christmas controversy

Illustration showing Roman Saturnalia banquet. (Photo by Alamy)

Saturnalia: the origins of the debauched Roman 'Christmas'

Ancient Babylon: everything you wanted to know.

A Victorian Christmas

What was Christmas like in the Victorian era?

2020: The historians’ verdict.

Chess players in the 14th century

Ancient board games: which ones did people play for fun in the past?.

A brief history of turkeys, plus why we eat a turkey dinner at Christmas

Actress Lily James and actor Michael Huisman looking at each other in a still from the film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Life under Nazi rule: the occupation of the Channel Islands.

A 14th-century illustration showing medieval butchery. (Photo by Prisma/UIG via Getty Images)

The medieval marketplace: a time traveller’s guide to shopping in the Middle Ages

German writer Hans Fallada (1893–1947), pictured in 1934 with his son Uli in a carriage in Carwitz, Mecklenburg. (Photo by Getty Images)

Germans who resisted the Nazis.

Claudia Jones at the Brixton offices of 'The West Indian Gazette'

Black British historyBritain's black trailblazers.

A policewoman gives directions to tourists in London in the 1920s.

“Sherlock Holmes in skirts”: the world's first policewomen.

Young Belgian refugees wave a British flag during celebrations for Belgian National Day in London during the First World War

Belgian refugees in WW1 Britain: were they welcome guests?.

Neil Oliver

Life lessons from history: Neil Oliver on searching the ancient past for timeless wisdom.

The Wild West: everything you wanted to know.

In pictures: 150 years of the British Red Cross.

From the British Isles to Italy and Spain: how the Normans reshaped Europe.

Women in black: the surprising history of widows.

An RAF crew with their American Douglas Boston light bomber, circa 1943. (Photo by Getty Images)

Personal stories of the Second World War.

When Bergen-Belsen was liberated, huts designed to house about 30 people were found to be crammed with as many as 500. (Photo by Getty Images)

Second World War

Your guide to the Holocaust

The Russian revolution: everything you wanted to know.

Inside the Viking mind.