People watching the Royal Wedding

United Kingdom

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

Schools of hard knocks: Georgian and Victorian public schools. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The school for girls imprisoned at Tothill Fields in the late 1850s. A dedicated schoolmistress was employed to teach that institution’s large female population; in other prisons, the matron took lessons. (Engraving from Chronicle, via Alamy)

Reading, writing and retribution: inside Victorian prison schools. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Shaftesbury Welcome Ragged School in Battersea , 1899. Classes of 40 were not rare, and they could stretch to 80 during staff shortages. (Photo by Mary Evans)

Class warfare: a day in the life of a Victorian schoolchild. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What was Mary Tudor and Thomas Cromwell's relationship – did they plan to marry?

A portrait of Anne Boleyn

Why did Henry VIII send Anne Boleyn to the block?

Visitors promenade alongside a lake with Surrey Zoological Gardens in the background, 1844 (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Victorian zoosAnimal attraction in the 19th century. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Manchester dog show, c1909

The surprising history of Victorian dog shows. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Victorian cricket. (Photo by Getty Images)

Cricket, cocaine and cocoa houses: 5 ways Victorians spent their free time. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

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

5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Gustave Doré's famous engraving, produced to illustrate the 1872 book 'London: A Pilgrimage', depicts (and exaggerates) the squalor of tightly packed terraced houses. Yes, as Rosalind Crone observes, the washing lines in Doré's picture demonstrate that "slum-dwellers were not all very dirty - or, at least, they didn't choose to be". (Photo by Getty Images)

Was Victorian life really so grim? 5 reasons why the Victorians were 'happy'. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Workhouses were meant to be unpleasant. Inmates worked hard (like these women hanging out laundry c1880). (Photo by Sean Sexton/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Victorian daily life: what was it like for 'ordinary' Victorians?

From fire hazard petticoats to garments that caused fainting and even death by poison, some trends in 19th-century women’s fashion were risky business for those who wore them. (Photo by Toronto Star Archives/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

A bodice-ripping revolution: how Victorian women cast off deadly fashion trends. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The bloody rise of Henry V: how his brutal upbringing propelled him to greatness. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Child-killing "demon-hosts": pigs in the medieval city. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Fire rages in Dublin’s ‘Four Courts’, housing the Public Record Office of Ireland, in 1922. Many historical documents were destroyed in the conflagration. (Photo by Getty Images)

InterviewRobert Bartlett: "The complexity of modern national politics has placed history at risk". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rune stone. (Photo by Getty Images)

Reading the runes: what we can learn about everyday life in the Viking Age. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Croydon Aerodome, pictured in 1926. Two years earlier, Matthews’ threat to sell his ‘Death Ray’ to a French party had sparked a dash to this airfield by investors determined to stop him. (Photo by Getty Images)

Amazing livesHarry Grindell Matthews: the strangely inventive mind behind the aerophone and Death Ray. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A collage showing historical babies. Edward VI as a baby, Edward VIII as a baby, and a depiction of the baby Jesus.

Historical baby names: a guide to baby name trends from the Anglo-Saxons to today

Emily Anderson. (Illustration by Cat O’Neil)

Amazing livesEmily Anderson: the secret life of Britain's most senior female wartime codebreaker. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Police chase demonstrators during the 1936 battle of Cable Street

When Mosley's fascists took on East End London and lost: the Battle of Cable Street explained

Should period dramas reflect modern sensibilities? (Photo by Hugh Cowling)

Should period dramas reflect modern sensibilities?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English prime minister Spencer Perceval being assassinated by bankrupt businessman John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons

Why was Spencer Perceval assassinated? Inside the killing of a Georgian prime minister

The 1924 British Empire Exhibition showcased industry close to home, as well as in the far-flung reaches of the empire. Here, Belfast ropeworkers show off the fruits of their labour. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The British empire’s last hurrah? Why an epic celebration of imperialism in 1924 failed to mask a superpower in decline. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 19th-century painting of Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army storming Basing House in 1645 (Photo by Artepics/Alamy Stock Photo)

The siege of Basing House: how the Civil War was won. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

King George V crosses a river in Nepal, 1912. “Historians have moved the discussion on empire in all sorts of directions over many years,” says Bronwen Everill. (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)

The challenge of writing histories of the British empire. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Michael Wood on crafting a national narrative“We need a meaningful story for the new generation – our composite union”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.