Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

History Advent Calendar 2019

Advent calendar 2019: 24 facts about Christmas through history

A vintage colour postcard, possibly produced to send Christmas greetings from the frontline, somewhere on the Western Front, during the First World War, c1918. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Christmas10 ways Christmas was celebrated during the First World War.

Jumping beans, throwing shoes and weather forecasting: medieval ways to look ahead to the New Year.

“Somewhere in between exploitation and empowerment”: James Norton on society osteopath Stephen Ward

The Trial of Christine Keeler. (Photo by BBC)

Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies: the women at the heart of the Profumo Affair

Mandy Rice-Davies (left) and Christine Keeler

Notes on a scandal: revisiting the Profumo Affair.

The birth of the modern world.

Mixed-race babies born after the Second World War

A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

12 facts about the Stuarts

Rotten boroughs cartoon

9 general election curiosities through history.

How the American Revolution created a global storm.

Tourists at Stonehenge

Stonehenge: a prehistoric tourist trap.

The Cunard liner Lusitania

How did Britain react to the sinking of the Lusitania?.

Asians in 1980s Britain.

How America captured Christmas.

A family at the seaside in the 1960s.

In pictures: English life in the 1960s, photographed by Tony Ray-Jones

A statue of Leif Eriksson, Erik the Red's son, who sailed to North America, c1000 AD. (Image by RF/Getty Images)

Russia, North America and the Middle East: where did the Vikings visit to trade and raid?.

A medieval new England: the Anglo-Saxons’ eastern odyssey.

The Mountbattens: success and scandal.

A c1880 Christmas card shows a frog committing murder

Carrots, goblins and killer frogs: an unexpected history of Christmas.

Oskar Schindler, who prevented hundreds of Jews from being murdered in the Holocaust

History heroSimon Reeve chooses Oskar Schindler (1908–74).

Few war leaders have been more profoundly steeped in history than Winston Churchill, who drew inspiration from his ancestor – and one of Britain's most celebrated generals – the Duke of Marlborough (left). (Images by Getty Images/Bridgeman

Sending history into battle: the lessons that war leaders have tried to learn from the past.

Rosa Parks rides an integrated bus

From Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King: the boycott that inspired the dream

A 'Thanksgiving Greetings' postcard. (Photo by K.J. Historical/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

A brief history of Thanksgiving.

A waitress working behind the counter at the first ever Lyons tea shop to be opened in London, 1953

The teashop empire.

Harlech Castle with Snowdonia in the background.

A brief history of Wales: the resilient nation

The ninth-century Alfred Jewel, adorned with the inscription: "Alfred ordered me to be made". This masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon art is thought to have been an aestel, a pointer used to follow text. (Picture by Alamy)

10 ways the Anglo-Saxons changed the course of British history.

President John F Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally ride through the streets of Dallas

The assassination of JFK: an eyewitness account.

Viking ships arriving in Britain, c1130. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty

From the raid on Lindisfarne to Harald Hardrada's defeat: 8 Viking dates you need to know

The queen's visit to the Welsh village of Aberfan

“No match for reality”: the missing history in The Crown series three.