Photo of Mabel Capper and Patricia Woodlock advertising a meeting, Manchester, Lancashire, July 1908

Women's history

An ancient Roman relief shows a midwife delivering a baby. Many midwives had other occupations, and undertook the task as a contribution to their community. (Wellcome Images)

Call the (Roman) midwife

Queen Victoria with her children and grandchildren. Kaiser Wilhelm II is pictured left in the front row. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

Friends, family and rivals: Queen Victoria and the European empires

A rocky relationship: Eleanor of Woodstock with her husband, Reginald II of Guelders. (Photo by Alamy)

The medieval rebel princesses.

Comedian Rhona Cameron and political activist Peter Tatchell help to hold a banner at an LGBT Pride event in London, 1998. (Photo by Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The historians’ view: is the world finally waking up to transgender issues?.

English countrywoman (right) with a lady of the court. From ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’, 1572. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Tudor women: what was life like?

Woodcut of a woman who may be stoking a furnace or baking bread, printed in the 15th century. (SSPL/Getty Images)

What was life like for a medieval housewife?.

Marble bust of Agrippina the Younger

Agrippina the Younger: the first true empress of Ancient Rome

Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in 'The Favourite'. (Photo by Twentieth Century Fox/Entertainment Pictures)

The Favourite: the real history behind the new Queen Anne film

Catherine Hanley tells the story of Empress Matilda, whose battle for the English throne became known as ‘the anarchy’. (Photo by Jeni Nott for BBC History Magazine)

Empress Matilda: Medieval warrior queen.

Catherine Hanley talks to Ellie Cawthorne about Matilda, the legitimate daughter of Henry I. (Photographed for BBC History Magazine by Jeni Nott).

Catherine Hanley on Matilda: "Honestly, if I were her, I'd have wanted to put my fist through a wall".

Queen Victoria’s pets and animals.

The Italian-French poet and campaigner for women's rights, Christine de Pizan (1364–c1430). (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Not so silent: the unquiet women of history

Agrippina the Younger. (Photo by Alamy)

Agrippina the Younger: a Roman woman of great power.

A 19th-century portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

Elizabeth I’s love life: was she really a ‘Virgin Queen’?

Illustration of Isabella of France. From the book ‘Our Queen Mothers’ by Elizabeth Villiers. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Isabella of France: the rebel queen

English journalist and broadcaster Jenni Murray at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, 2017. (Photo by Roberto Ricciuti/Getty Images)

World-changing women.

A maid polishes a silver dish. Female domestic servants were highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, but in Reformation France they found some ways to fight back. (Photo by: Christophel Fine Art/UIG via Getty Images)

The women who wouldn’t be silenced in Reformation France.

Petra Kelly. “Through sheer force of will, Petra Kelly put green politics on the map. Her success in Germany in the 1980s inspired green parties across the world to shake things up,” says Caroline Lucas. (Photo by Schulze-Vorberg/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

My history hero: Caroline Lucas chooses Petra Kelly (1947–92).

Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait of Anne Stuart. Following the 1707 Acts of Union, she would be queen of Great Britain and Ireland. (Photo by Getty Images)

"A charming, popular monarch": Tracy Borman on Queen Anne.

French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette and husband Willy, photographed c1902. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)

Who was the real Colette?

Max Adams. (Photo by Kona Macphee/Royal Literary Fund)

Remarkable women through history.

5 women who challenged the Westminster boys' club in the 18th century.

Queen Anne, based on a work by Sir Godfrey Kneller, c1702–10. Anne's reign saw women take centre stage in fierce political debates. (Photo by Bridgeman/National Trust Photographic Library)

Queen Anne's feuding favourites.

Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, England. (Photo by Getty Images)

The house that Bess built: the secrets of Hardwick Hall.

Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Deadly rivals: Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

c1935: Beatrice Shilling sits astride her Norton motorcycle. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

5 "bloody brilliant" 20th-century women.

Helen Duncan, a 20th-century medium and spiritualist, allegedly summoned spirits draped in ‘ectoplasm’ – organic matter emitted from her body. In the 1930s she was denounced as a fraud, and in 1944 prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcra Act, which forbade conjuring spirits. (Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum/University of London)

Conjuring up the dead: Helen Duncan and her ectoplasm spirits.

The ‘Pit Brow Lasses’ of 19th-century coal mines.

8 unconventional royal wedding dresses in history.

Queen Victoria by Lucy Worsley.