Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

A French 15th-century covered market

10 things you (probably) didn't know about the Middle Ages

Dissection of human cadaver by physicians

Ask the medieval doctor: 6 ailments and their treatments.

Rethinking the Renaissance.

Medieval banquet

What time of the day did medieval people eat?

Why do brides wear white dresses? Plus the history behind 3 more wedding traditions

An illumination depicts medieval women embroidering

Medieval misconceptions: 12 myths about life in the Middle Ages – busted

Clothes infected by the Black Death are burned in medieval Europe, c1340. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Black Death facts: your guide to "the worst catastrophe in recorded history"

A medieval couple being married by a clergyman

Love and marriage in medieval England

Picture of Luddites destroying machinery

Industrial revolution

Your guide to…The Luddite movement

Sally Dixon-SmithMedieval love and marriage.

The Vikings: everything you wanted to know.

Britain at War.

What was a drunkard's cloak used for? This illustration shows a man wearing the archaic punishment tool designed to punish habitual drinkers. (Photo by Getty Images)

Q&AWhat was a drunkard’s cloak used for?

Miners work hard in cramped conditions at the pit face in Ellington Colliery, Northumberland, 1951 (Photo by Getty Images)

The Northumbrians: from Bede to Geordie Shore.

Marble statue of a young Roman girl

Everything you wanted to know about Roman Britain – but were afraid to ask

View of the Norse Buildings, L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, Newfoundland. (Photo by Alamy)

Medieval globetrotters.

A 10th-century silver coin minted in a Danish settlement

The global millennium: how the year AD 1000 was more globalised than we might think.

8 May 1945: Crowds celebrate VE Day in London, at the end of World War 2. (Photo by Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"Hooray! The war is ended": 5 people's recollections of VE Day.

Expelled Germans leaving Poland's western territories

"The war without an end": what happened in Europe after VE Day?.

Victorian family. (Photo by Sean Sexton-Getty images)

The Victorians: everything you wanted to know.

The rise of spiritualism after WW1.

Irish people starving during the Potato Famine

The Corn Laws crisis.

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

"A wonder of the world": Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition at the famous Crystal Palace.

The dark side: A man summons demons in a 14th-century English encyclopaedia. "Some educated men were determined to contact the spirit world – and took great risks to do so," writes Catherine Rider. (Photo by Bridgeman)

From healing spells to conjuring demons: the medieval obsession with magic.

Harvest time in Surrey in the mid-19th century. Powerful Tory landowners had agitated for the introduction of the Corn Laws to protect the income from their farms. (Photo by Christie's Images via Bridgman)

The Corn Law crisis: the bitter political war that threatened thousands with starvation.

Tectonic foliation in metamorphic rocks at Porthleven, Cornwall. (Photo by Getty Images)

How the world made us.

The effects of the disease known as the Black Death

History quiz: how much do you know about the Black Death?.

Crowds in Piccadilly Circus in London celebrate VE Day

Countdown to VE Day: the week World War 2 ended in Europe.

Silver penny of Cnut

Ivar the Boneless, Ragnvald of Ed and 6 more Vikings you should know about

Sam Willis and James Daybell. (Photo by David Hampton, replica Viking helmet by Dreamstime)

The unexpected Vikings.