Russian Revolution, October 1917. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov - 1870-1924). Undated Communist poster.

Russia

How constitutions changed the world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Barbarossa: Hitler’s greatest gamble. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov

Vladimir Lenin and his lust for power

Stalin: the real victor of WW2. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sending the first man into space. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Police lead away a suffragettes, arrested for chaining herself to the railings of Buckingham Palace

Female activism: 10 remarkable protests from around the world

The Cold War: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A photograph of the battle of Moscow, 1942, first printed in Signal, a magazine published by the German Third Reich from 1940 to 1945. (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Second World War

Operation Barbarossa: why Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union was his greatest mistake

Mary Seacole is best known for her work during the Crimean War, where she cared for injured soldiers. But she was also well-known as a hotelier, traveller and author – a celebrity of the Victorian era. This is a contemporary painting of her

Mary SeacoleVictorian celebrity, joyful hotelier and Crimean nurse

An engraving of the thin Red Line, depicting the 93rd Regiment at the battle of Balaklava

Q&AWhat was the Thin Red Line?

The space race: everything you wanted to know

The space race: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English cavalry attacking the Sikh at the Battle of Aliwal

Victoria the warrior queen

Illustration of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava during the Crimean War

Victorians and war: which conflicts were fought during the Victorian era?

Editor’s pick: Lenin’s revolutionary train journey. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Monument to Prince Vladimir the Great in Moscow

Q&AWho were the Kievan Rus and what do they have to do with the Vikings?

Grigory Yefimovich Novykh, also known as Rasputin

Rasputin: the 'mad monk' who became a friend to the Romanovs

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall: everything you need to know

The Cuban Missile Crisis: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A mushroom cloud produced by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb during Operation Ivy, an American nuclear test that took place in 1952. (SSPL/Getty Images)

How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world

History Traveller, part 2: St Basil's Cathedral, Moscow. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rutger Bregman. (Rutger Bregman (Photo by Maartje ter Horst)

Rutger Bregman’s optimistic history of the world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Florence Nightingale

The life and legend of Florence Nightingale. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Tectonic foliation in metamorphic rocks at Porthleven, Cornwall. (Photo by Getty Images)

How the world made us. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hollow victory: Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, attends Paris VE Day celebrations. But many faced privation and uncertainty as the war drew to a close. (Photo by Getty Images)

VE Day at 75The bitter taste of victory: why May 1945 was not a time of celebration for everyone

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. (Photo by Getty Images)

Yuri Gagarin: 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about the first man in space

On the trail of the lost pianos of Siberia (Photo by Michael Turek)

Russia’s musical journeys. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Royal women podcast episodes

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: what might we learn from pandemics in the past?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: a historical perspective. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A short history of quarantine