People watching the Royal Wedding

United Kingdom

Photo of King George V's funeral

The death of King George V – and why his doctor hastened his demise

Bear fat, false rumps and arsenic makeup: 7 of the most bizarre beauty trends from the past. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sarah Biffin: the brilliant artist who found fame and royal favour – despite having no arms or legs. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

St Paul's Cathedral photographed through the smoke after a night when the German air force bombed London

Second World War

"War's greatest picture"? Inside the night St Paul's Cathedral survived the Blitz

Portrait of Coch Bach y Bala

Who was ‘The Welsh Houdini’?Coch Bach y Bala, the legendary prison escape artist. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thomas Cromwell shown in a c1533 portrait after Hans Holbein the Younger (Photo by Penta Springs Limited/Alamy Stock Photo)

Thomas Cromwell's death – a rapid descent from the pinnacle of power

Annie Gray (Photo by Melissa Rodrigues)

“Leisure was built into the whole shopping experience” | Annie Gray on the history of the high street. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An engraving of John Milton in 1670. By that time he’d been blind for nearly two decades – but continued to express strong views on religion and the monarchy in his writing (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)

Long road to paradise: the life of John Milton and how he created his masterpiece, Paradise Lost. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Lord Lucan and his wife Veronica, shortly after becoming engaged in 1963. It is thought that Lady Lucan was the intended target of the attack in 1974 (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Murder and vanishing without a trace: the mysterious case of Lord Lucan. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Week six quiz: Victorian life. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Victorian family life | HistoryExtra Academy video lecture. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Living in sin: unmarried relationships in Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How to celebrate a Victorian wedding. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mary I. (Getty Images)

Mary I: your guide to the life and rule of Henry VII's daughter – plus a timeline and 7 little-known facts

How gruelling was the Victorian workhouse?

What working-class autobiographies can tell us about the Industrial Revolution. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A late 19th-century image shows a group of ‘pit lasses’, employed to work at the surface of coal mines. An earlier law had explicitly banned women from working below ground. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Industrial revolution

From family to factory: women's lives during the Industrial Revolution

Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light

“He’s making choices that we would perceive as ruthless” | Wolf Hall’s researcher on Thomas Cromwell. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

'Monster soup commonly called Thames water, being a correct representation of that precious stuff doled out to us!!!', 1828; showing an ugly woman holding a spy glass which touches the circumference of a large circle representing a magnified drop of water filled with grotesque aquatic creatures. A satire on the Metropolitan Water Supply.

From murder bottles to arsenic wallpaper: 5 hidden killers in Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Victorian healthcare | HistoryExtra Academy video lecture. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Week four quiz: medicine and health in Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The opthalmoscope revolutionised ophthalmology, allowing physicians to examine the inside of the human eye. (Image by Getty Images)

Victorian medicine: why the 19th century was a time of seismic medical change

The surgeon Robert Liston prepares to cut open a patient in the first half of the 19th century. Known as the “fastest knife in the west end”, Liston could remove a leg in less than 30 seconds. For most patients, however, the agony was more prolonged. (Wellcome Library, London)

An appointment at the house of death: the horror of the early Victorian hospital. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The surgeon Robert Liston prepares to cut open a patient in the first half of the 19th century. Known as the “fastest knife in the west end”, Liston could remove a leg in less than 30 seconds. For most patients, however, the agony was more prolonged. (Wellcome Library, London)

"An enlightened turn": how medicine (and the vaccination) developed in Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A mural in Bristol of activist Roy Hackett, one of the primary organisers of the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott (Photo by Steve Taylor ARPS/Alamy Stock Photo)

Hakim Adi | “Racism in Britain has a long history – but so does anti-racism”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Members of the National Front speak to the press in 1978. Chairman John Tyndall (second from left) was a neo-Nazi who later founded the British National Party (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

From Mosley to the summer riots of 2024: the opportunistic evolution of Britain’s far right. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An 18th-century engraving of Edward, Earl of Warwick. Much of his short life was spent in the Tower of London before his execution for alleged treason (Photo by INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo)

The other prince in the Tower: the tragedy of Edward of Warwick. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An 1872 illustration from the weekly newspaper Days’ Doings shows a shoplifter being apprehended (Photo by Look and Learn/Rosenberg Collection/Bridgeman Images)

Lady swindlers: 6 women who turned to lives of crime and became queens of the underworld. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Kavita Puri's hidden histories: "Many are turning against prejudice. But we cannot be complacent". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

One of the hostages of the Iranian Embassy Siege of 1980 escapes across the balcony (Photo by David Levenson/Keystone/Getty Images)

The Iranian Embassy siege of 1980: the six-day crisis that was the making of the SAS. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.