Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

19th-century mugshots

The real Peaky Blinders

Taxing the rich to feed the poor in the 17th century: the world's first welfare state.

Native American leader Sitting Bull

History heroSteven Knight chooses Sitting Bull (1831–90).

US soldiers in Vietnam

From the Napoleonic Wars to Vietnam and Iraq: a history of war trauma.

Families in a London slum, c1900

From slums to suburbs: Britain’s council house revolution.

Cavalry charge into a crowd of protesters at St Peter's Field, Manchester, as depicted in an 1819 engraving. What followed was the worst violence ever to occur at a political meeting in Britain. (Picture by Alamy)

The Peterloo Massacre: what did it achieve?.

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle called Mata Hari (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)

First World War

Mata Hari: exotic dancer, femme fatale, traitor and spy

General Early Modern

Everything you need to know about the Holy Roman Empire

Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico's left-wing president who in 1940 legalised drugs. (Photo by Henry Guttmann/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The year Mexico legalised drugs.

An 1824 cartoon depicting the drinking escapades of Oxford students. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The history of student life: 7 things you didn’t know.

One of the earliest and most famous examples of extremism comes from ancient Rome. Starting in 264 BC and continuing for more than a century, Rome engaged in a series of wars with neighbouring Carthage. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of extremism – from ancient Rome to al Qaeda.

Q&A'God Save The Queen': how old is the British national anthem?

The ancient Greek physician Dioscorides

General ancient history

Happy plants and laughing weeds: how people of the ancient world used – and abused – drugs

The Ashes urn, a cricketing trophy

In pictures: The Ashes through history

A late 19th or early 20th-century painting entitled 'Mother and Child'. As fertility rates fell, sentimental idealisations of mothers and babies developed. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The motherhood revolution: how the great fertility decline affected the lives of women.

For our forebears, the secret to a good night's sleep lay in the contents of your gut. (Photo by Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

6 sleeping tips and tricks from history.

Stonewall and the fight for gay rights.

A 15th-century map of the world illustrating a Latin edition of Ptolemy's the 'Geography'. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

12 alternative giant leaps for mankind – from carnivorism to Magna Carta.

Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark. The BBC television drama is putting Cornwall’s coastline at risk of "over-tourism” as visitors flock to the area to visit the show's scenic filming locations, tourism chiefs have warned. (Photo by BBC/Mammoth Screen/Mike Hogan)

Poldark, Peaky Blinders and 6 other historical TV shows that have tourists flocking to Britain

A medieval European union: why the Hanseatic League still matters.

Back on Planet Earth: what world did Neil Armstrong leave behind in 1969?.

c1916: British soldiers sitting around a lamp in their trench. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

First World War

10 First World War slang words we still use today

A closer look at the Staffordshire Hoard.

St Fagans Castle and gardens

A visit to St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff.

The 'Afghan Elvis': the extraordinary life of Ahmad Zahir.

Out of the closets and into the streets: the legacy of the Stonewall Riots.

How wild was the Wild West?

Victorian freak shows.

Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, seated from left to right, in Yalta for the 'Big Three' Conference. In February 1945, British diplomats were already joking that it was actually a conference of the ‘Big Two-and-a-Half’. (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

WW2: When Britain stood (not quite) alone.

Winston Churchill gives his famous 'V for Victory' sign while addressing crowds from the balcony of City Hall in Sheffield, November 1941. Churchill's "inspirational" wartime speeches "galvanised the country and became part of our national lexicon", says historian Dr Nick Lloyd. (Photo by Capt. Horton/ Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)

Debate: Is British history too fixated with the story of the world wars?.