Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

Making a splash: Diana relishes taking her sons on a water ride at the Thorpe Park theme park in 1993. William has since recalled how his mother loved "laughter and fun". (Photo by Getty Images)

Princess Diana: a "modern" mother who ripped up the rule book.

An ‘ordinary’ Nazi.

David Olusoga"Half a million cats and dogs were put to death in 1939 – for no good reason".

A portrait of Anne Boleyn. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Anne Boleyn: a 16th-century feminist?.

The Oseberg ship from around AD 820 is one of the most well- preserved Viking ships ever excavated (Photo by Noe Falk Nielsen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Viking ships: 5 lesser-known facts

Solon, an Athenian statesman (left) laid the foundations for democracy

Your guide to...the history of democracy

Unexpected Irish tales.

The ruins of Coventry Cathedral after bombing

Second World War

Your guide to the 1940 Coventry Blitz

Stephen Bourne on Black soldiers in WW2

Black Britons in WW2.

An illustration of a group of supposed witches

A very brief history of witches by Suzannah Lipscomb

A 14th-century depiction of bakers at work. (Image by Getty Images)

Social mobility in the Middle Ages: could medieval people improve their station?

Adventure and opportunity: female transatlantic travellers.

A near-contemporary depiction of the 14th-century English monk, mathematician and astronomer Richard of Wallingford. Monks were among the leading scientific practitioners during the medieval period. (Photo by Bridgeman)

The genius of medieval science: from medicine to mechanical clocks.

The Regency era: everything you wanted to know.

Moving, medieval-style.

An empty knight's armor sitting on a chest.

Q&AHow did knights in armour go to the toilet?.

Rescue workers at the scene of the wrecked Pantglas Junior School at Aberfan, South Wales. (Getty Images)

Death under the black mountain: surviving the 1966 Aberfan disaster

Relatives wave off convicts being sent from England

Your guide to...transportation to Australia

Aztecs in their own words.

Evil May Day

Flames and violence: the Evil May Day Riots that shook Tudor London.

Naming of St John the Baptist, c12th century. From a wall painting in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Medieval baby names: what were people called in the Middle Ages?

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria’s voracious appetite for food and sex

The British royal family at the Queen's annual birthday parade 2019

A brief guide to the British royal family, by The Crown’s historian Robert Lacey

Margaret MacMillanWhy are there wars?.

The dispossession of Native Americans.

ever before,” says Margaret MacMillan. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

"We’ve come to think that peace is normal, but that's not the reality": Margaret MacMillan on humanity's compulsion to go to war.

Halloween postcard

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

Medieval daily life: everything you wanted to know.

Should I stay or I should go? The problem with historical monuments in 2020.

In 802 Charlemagne took delivery of an elephant, sent to him by Harun al-Rashid, the caliph in Baghdad. Here, a manuscript illumination from a late 12th century English Latin bestiary. (Image by Alamy)

8 turning points in medieval European history.