People watching the Royal Wedding

United Kingdom

This 16th-century woodcut depicts King James VI at the North Berwick witch trials, the case that first sparked his obsession with hunting. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

James VI and I: the king who hunted witches. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Scottish soldier and Field Marshal Douglas Haig (1861 - 1928) visiting the troops during the First World War. (Central Press/Getty Images)

First World War

Field Marshal Haig: a man much misunderstood?

An illustration depicting the procession to the House of Commons to deliver People's Charter to government in 1842. (Photo by Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

A brief history of Chartism

Hallie Rubenhold. (Photo by Fran Monks)

The women killed by Jack the Ripper. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce in 'Outlaw King'. (Photo by Netfix / David Eustace)

Robert the Bruce: what do we know?

Queen Victoria with her children and grandchildren. Kaiser Wilhelm II is pictured left in the front row. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

Friends, family and rivals: Queen Victoria and the European empires

BBC History Magazine’s ‘ordinary’ people tweet: a response

Falkner Street, Liverpool in the 1960s. A house on this road was the star of a 2018 BBC series. Image by Nick Hedges

David Olusoga on house histories: "Our homes are often the sites of great dramas and tragedies". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

"It was in Ireland that King John revealed himself as a monster," writes Nicholas Vincent. (Image by Alamy)

King John: the making of a medieval monster. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Pocket-sized paintings: Elizabethans in miniature. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A rocky relationship: Eleanor of Woodstock with her husband, Reginald II of Guelders. (Photo by Alamy)

The medieval rebel princesses. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Clifford's Tower stands on the site where around 150 Jews took their own lives rather than renounce their faith, in 1190. (Photo by Dreamstime)

The persecution of Jews in medieval England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

(Photo by Alamy)

Brexit lessons from history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Comedian Rhona Cameron and political activist Peter Tatchell help to hold a banner at an LGBT Pride event in London, 1998. (Photo by Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The historians’ view: is the world finally waking up to transgender issues?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrait of King Henry VI, the subject of this episode of the History Extra podcast. (Photo by Bridgeman)

Henry VI: terrible king. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British military behind a barricade in Dublin, 1916. (Photo by ullstein picture via Getty Images)

Bullets and ballot boxes: a history of Anglo-Irish relations since the Easter Rising. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty in WWI. (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)

Churchill’s navy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sexing up history: how to study and tell the history of sex. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

"For those of noble birth who were condemned to die, execution by beheading (which was considered the least brutal method of execution) was used until the 18th century," says criminologist and historian Lizzie Seal. This illustration depicts the execution of Charles I in January 1649. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of capital punishment in Britain

Jack Sheppard and his accomplice Blueskin rob a home without waking the owner, circa 1720. (Photo by Alamy)

Victorian murder scandal. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English countrywoman (right) with a lady of the court. From ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’, 1572. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Tudor women: what was life like?

Bill Edwardes, who at the age of 16 joined the army to fight during WW2.

Second World War

The boys who lied about their age to fight in WW2

George V meeting a hospital matron on the western front during the First World War. (Photo by Getty Images)

King George V at war. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Victoria pictured c1862 during her period of mourning

Prince Albert: the death that rocked the monarchy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Captain James Lawrence of the Chesapeake is wounded

The capture of the Chesapeake: how the British Royal Navy rescued its reputation in the War of 1812. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Oil on canvas of the Princes in the Tower

An enigma at the heart of British history: who killed the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard Duke of York?

Alan Johnson talks to the History Extra podcast about schools through history. (Photo by Roberto Ricciuti)

Schools through time. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An example of the Zimmermann Telegram

First World War

The Zimmermann telegram: the telegram that brought America into the First World War

Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, sits with his wife, Wallis Simpson, at the Chateau de Cands in France, 1937. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

Edward VIII: Nazi sympathiser, playboy prince or peace-loving reformer?

'Soccer' and 'diaper' are among many 'American' words that are more faithful to the old English tongue than those used in Britain today, says James Evans. Other 'Americanisms' were used in Shakespeare's plays before the first English colony was established in Virginia. (L to R: Photos by Hulton Archive/Getty Images; DeAgostini/Getty Images; Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

From candy to diapers: the purity of American English. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.