People watching the Royal Wedding

United Kingdom

Imperialism on the oceans. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Wrens operating the Colossus computer at Bletchley Park, 1943

Second World War

Your guide to Bletchley Park, the key WW2 decryption centre

Almond Hedgehog: A debonair addition to the hostess’s armoury in the Georgian period. (Illustration by Clair Rossiter for BBC History Magazine)

What was the best meal in history?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jane Austen's fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Fern Riddell.

Fern Riddell"Can we call the suffragettes terrorists? Absolutely". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rushton Triangular Lodge was ostensibly a warrener's lodge but the biblical references that adorn its three exterior walls tell a different story. (Photo English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

History explorer: Catholic resistance to Elizabeth I. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

The orphan hero who fought at Trafalgar. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

This engraving by William Hogarth shows the final instalment of a sequence of artworks called 'The Four Stages of Cruelty' (1751). In it, the fictional Tom Nero is being dissected for anatomical studies at Cutlerian theatre near Newgate prison after being hanged for murder. Nero looks like the Dead-Alive, as though he can see and smell his own executed body on the dissection table. The chief physician sits in the centre on a high-backed chair, resembling a high court judge. He is surrounded by various medical men, including penal surgeons, who did gallows work. The skeletons of dissected criminals were usually refused a Christian burial and so were displayed as specimens, as can be seen top left and top right. (Photo by Guildhall Library/Getty Images)

Surviving the gallows: the Georgian hangings that didn't go to plan. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The colonial secrets of Britain’s stately homes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How did the Reformation impact Jews?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Scrooge and Marley's ghost

Q&AWhy do we say ‘Bah Humbug’ and what does it mean?

Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and Princess Margaret as Prince Charming and Cinderella in a 1941 pantomime

Q&AWhat are the origins of the Christmas pantomime?

David Olusoga“Desks went from a niche furniture item to the work station of millions”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thomas Cromwell, Tudor statesman and 'alter rex'.

Your guide to Cardinal Wolsey, Tudor statesman and prince of the church

A Victorian Christmas

What was Christmas like in the Victorian era?

British mystery writer Agatha Christie, c1926.

The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie

Henry VI of England. (Photo by iStock/Getty Images)

Henry VI may have had a "sex coach" - plus 4 more curious facts about his life

US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill, meeting during the Casablanca conference in 1943. (Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

Second World War

Churchill and D-Day: did the prime minister oppose the Normandy landings?

Chess players in the 14th century

Ancient board games: which ones did people play for fun in the past?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A brief history of turkeys, plus why we eat a turkey dinner at Christmas

Actress Lily James and actor Michael Huisman looking at each other in a still from the film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Life under Nazi rule: the occupation of the Channel Islands. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The future King George VI playing at the Wimbledon tennis championships, 1926

How George VI's sheer ordinariness made him the darling of the nation

Ian Fleming, British author and creator of the James Bond character

James Bond in real life: where did Ian Fleming's inspirations come from?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 14th-century illustration showing medieval butchery. (Photo by Prisma/UIG via Getty Images)

The medieval marketplace: a time traveller’s guide to shopping in the Middle Ages

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin vs God: did the 'Origin of Species' cause a clash between church and science?

Boys playing conkers in 1926. Horse chestnuts played an unlikely role in the war effort just a few years earlier. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Did conkers help win the First World War?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Claudia Jones at the Brixton offices of 'The West Indian Gazette'

Black British historyBritain's black trailblazers. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

“Sherlock Holmes in skirts”: the world's first policewomen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.