Social history

St David painting in stained glass window, Ceredigion, UK. Exact date unknown. (Photo by David Angel/Alamy Stock Photo)

16 things you (probably) didn’t know about St David’s Day traditions

Writer Virginia Woolf photographed in 1932. (Photo by ullstein bild via Getty Images)

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

“I have a dream”: the story of Martin Luther King’s struggle for civil rights in America

Pancake day celebrations

The history of Shrove Tuesday

Welsh flag, featuring a dragon. The red dragon of Wales dates back to Roman times. (Photo by Getty Images)

Q&A Why does the Welsh flag feature a red dragon?

Doctor treating a patient, from a 14th-century manuscript. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Elma Brenner on medieval wellbeing: “People in the Middle Ages were absolutely focused on staying healthy”

Doctor treating a patient, from a 14th-century manuscript. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Medieval medicine

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Hidden Figures: the incredible real history behind the film

A medieval monk praying in front of a table of apothacary's herbs

Beating the Black Death: did medieval medicine help people to survive?

Millennium Centre, Cardiff. (Photo by Dreamstime)

Simon Jenkins: “Wales needs to get over England and be Wales again”

Cat burglars scaled walls and climbed through lofty windows. (Illustration by Rachel Dickens for BBC History Magazine)

The rise of the cat burglar

One of the burial mounds at Sutton Hoo

How dark were the Dark Ages?