May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine out now!
The people’s history of VE Day
John Willis draws on an oral history archive to reveal how ordinary Britons celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany
Scottish witch hunts
Martha McGill examines why so many people were accused of – and executed for – witchcraft north of the border
Medieval Europe’s greatest love story?
Abélard and Héloïse’s famous relation ship has inspired artists and romantics for centuries. Yvonne Seale finds difficult truths behind the myths
Who fired first?
The American Revolutionary War was sparked by the “shot heard around the world” at Lexington. But, asks George Goodwin, who was the aggressor?
Ireland’s Great Famine
In the 1840s, British government policies turned an agricultural crisis into a catastrophe that killed more than a million people, says Padraic X Scanlan
Egypt’s grape expectations
Islam Issa explores the major roles that wine played in ancient Egyptian society, medicine and rituals
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