Women's history

Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

The real story of Bridgerton’s Queen Charlotte: from glittering courts to tragic decline

Women queue for potatoes in a greengrocer's shop in London, c1945. (Photo by Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer/IWM via Getty Images)

Second World War

Saving food, saving lives: rationing in the Second World War

A portrait of Helen Keller (1880-1968) holding a Braille volume, c1956. Keller, who was both blind and deaf, was an American writer, educator and advocate for the disabled. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

9 things you (probably) didn’t know about Helen Keller

Queen Victoria in her coronation robes.

Your guide to Queen Victoria and a timeline of her life – plus 16 fascinating facts

Portrait of Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII’s most successful queen?

A 19th-century engraving. A young woman plays a harp, singing a duet with a man holding the music book, Duets de L’Amour. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

A survivor’s guide to Georgian marriage

A portrait of Russian empress Catherine the Great

Hypocrite, reactionary, usurper, sex maniac: is Catherine the Great’s reputation justified?

Rege-Jean Page as Simon Basset and Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne Bridgerton

Bridgerton: “A period drama like no other”

Hannah Greig, historian and etiquette advisor to new Netflix show Bridgerton, joins us to talk about the historical detail that can be found in the drama. (Image courtesy Netflix)

Bridgerton: ripping up the rulebook on Regency romance

'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' (2020): Viola Davis as Ma Rainey. (Photo by David Lee/Netflix)

Who was Ma Rainey, “mother of the blues”?

The effigy of Eleanor of Castile on her tomb

The love lives of medieval queens

Fern Riddell explores some of the darker aspects of the campaign for votes for women, in this episode from our archive. (Image by Getty Images)

Editor’s pick: Were the suffragettes terrorists?

Fern Riddell.

Fern Riddell "Can we call the suffragettes terrorists? Absolutely"

Capture of Helen by Paris, causing the Trojan War, according to Homer. Hand-colored woodcut. (Photo by Alamy)

General ancient history

Women in Greek myths

A policewoman gives directions to tourists in London in the 1920s.

“Sherlock Holmes in skirts”: the world’s first policewomen