Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

Why Magna Carta matters.

A rail revolution: Dan Snow on the meteoric rise of British railways.

The Bank of England in a late 18th century illustration. A 1783 investigation into malpractice at the Bank is reminiscent of the current financial crisis. (Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Georgian banking blunders.

Winston Churchill, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, gives his 'victory' sign while making a polling day tour of his constituency during an election. (Getty Images)

Are these the most overrated people in history?.

Medieval ploughmen ploughing with oxen

The dark side of the Anglo-Saxons.

First Textbook

Toys and games that killed in Tudor England.

A Mayan funeral mask, made from jadeite and shell

The Maya and the apocalypse.

The Victorian trade in dead bodies.

The Uganda railway, which links Uganda and Kenya with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya, was built during the period of British control of East Africa. (SSPL/Getty Images)

The dark side of abolitionism.

Rosa Parks Riding the Bus

My history hero: Rosa Parks (1913-2005).

Q&A: Where did the monks go after the dissolution of the monasteries?.

Alfred the Great and Æthelflæd, 13th century

The Anglo-Saxon cunning woman.

BBC History Magazine

Q&A: When was the first wheelchair introduced?

BBC History Magazine

Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? Unmarried Motherhood in 20th-Century England

BBC History Magazine

My generous Daddy

The scandal of female miners in 19th-century Britain

Hampton Court Palace

The LibraryWhere history happened: a history of disability.

Second World War

The dark charisma of Adolf Hitler

Illustration by Jonty Clark.

Ye olde travel guide: Dublin AD 1000.

BBC History Magazine

Gasmark 200

BBC History Magazine

Bob Hope's Red Scare

BBC History Magazine

The Road Not Taken: How Britain Narrowly Missed a Revolution

A runestone depicting two warriors fighting and the journey of the Vikings to Valhalla, the hall of slain. (DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

The Vikings at home.

A British waitress serves American servicemen inside Rainbow Corner, Piccadilly, January 1945. (Getty Images)

Where history happened: life on the home front.

BBC History Magazine

The Georges

An illustration titled ‘The petition for abolishing the slave trade’, from Amelia Opie’s ’The Black Man's Lament; or How to Make Sugar’, London, 1826. “Come, listen to my plaintive ditty,/Ye tender hearts, and children dear!/And, should it move your souls to pity,/Oh! try to end the griefs you hear.” (Photo by Photo 12/UIG via Getty Images)

9 key places connected to the abolition of the British slave trade.

‘Portrait of a Lady’ by Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, c1460. From the collection of the National Gallery, London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Medieval underwear: bras, pants and lingerie in the Middle Ages

BBC History Magazine

The correct piece of paper

The White Tower, one of the oldest parts of the Tower of London complex, was built by William the Conqueror. (Getty Images)

Castles of the Conqueror

A Victorian drawing room with pictures in heavy frames and ornately covered furniture, c1860. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Where history happened: Victorian collectors.