Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

PT Barnum and General Tom Thumb

The greatest show on earth? The myths of the Victorian freak show

Shakespeare and America.

Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet

Jane Austen’s tips for “health and happiness”.

Greg Jenner. (Photo by Frank Monks)

Books interviewFame, fortune and falls from grace: Greg Jenner on the rise of celebrity culture.

Jesus appears before Pontius Pilate in a crowd scene from Oberammergau's 2010 Passion Play. The Bavarian town stages the mammoth production once every ten years, with a cast made up entirely of local residents. (Photo by Brigitte Maria Mayer Passionsspiele Oberammergau 2020)

Travel to: Oberammergau, Germany.

News in the Middle Ages.

Shoppers crowd a Woolworths store in 1955

Q&AHas there always been panic buying? And when have people panic shopped through history?

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: a historical perspective.

'The Poor Actress's Christmas Dinner', a painting by pre-Raphaelite artist Robert Braithwaite Martineau, says much about the way Victorians had begun to understand the problem of loneliness. (Photo by Bridgeman Art Library)

The invention of loneliness: why being 'unhappy alone' is a surprisingly modern idea.

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)

A brief history of royal mothers and childbirth.

17th September 1936: The British minister of health, Sir Kingsley Wood, watches nurses weighing newborn twins during a visit to Southmead Hospital in Bristol to see the work local authorities were doing for the maintenance and improvement of health and housing conditions. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Mum hacks: 5 tips for new mothers from history.

The Duchess of Richmond's ball

Before Waterloo: what happened at the Duchess of Richmond's ball?.

The reconcilliation between Thomas Becket and Henry II. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

From the handshake to the high-five: a brief history of gestures.

General ancient history

When was toilet paper invented and what did people use before?

German women carrying children believed to be part of the Lebensborn programme

Second World War

The woman who gave birth for Hitler

Hadley Freeman on a 20th-century family history.

Anne Frank - Getty Images

Second World War

12 things you need to know about Anne Frank and her diary

Christine de Pizan. (Photo by Getty Images)

Doctors, playwrights and feminists: meet 6 trailblazing medieval women

Wartime evacuees wash their hands

“The very sight of her hands did almost turn my stomach”: a brief history of hand-washing.

Who is the greatest leader in world history?

The (not so) stinky Middle Ages: why medieval people were cleaner than we think

On his plantation in Georgia, American politician Benjamin Hawkins is teaching Creek Native Americans how to use a plow, 1805. (Photo by Granger, NYC / TopFoto)

Food and war.

Illustration by Owen Davey

General History

A brief history of human filth: how did people try to keep clean in the past?

Four women dressed in the perceived fashion of the roaring twenties in a 1954 musical called ‘The Boy Friend’. (Photo by Getty Images)

How the ‘Roaring Twenties’ myth obscures the making of modern Britain

London’s trailblazing women.

c1960s photo showing a man places an engagement ring on a woman's finger.

A brief history of proposing marriage.

Keith Granville, managing director of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), holding a model of the Boeing 747 jet, with the new aircraft hangars under construction in the background, at Heathrow Airport, 17 March 1969. (Photo by Jim Gray/Keystone/Getty Images)

In pictures: the history of London’s Heathrow Airport

Depiction of the five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell and touch) by a late 18th/early 19th unknown artist. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

5 smells that made Georgian England.

Medieval medicine.

Hidden Figures: the incredible real history behind the film.