20th Century - Getty Images

20th Century

The capture of the pirate Blackbeard, 1718. Painting by JLG Ferris. One of history’s most notorious pirates, Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach almost certainly had a West Country twang because he was born in Bristol in around 1680. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images)

Q&ADid most English pirates really talk with a West Country accent?

Mao’s Cultural Revolution: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

How the Beatles were in tune with 60s Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British army soldiers face off against a group of Irish civilians

Why we should remember…Bloody Sunday

Coronation chicken recipe

Historical recipeCoronation chicken

School photo showing rows of children from a Manchester school

Did Britain really roar in the 1920s?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Neville Chamberlain holds aloft the famous piece of paper at Heston aerodrome on 30 September 1938. (Picture by Alamy)

Second World War

The Munich agreement: a battle with Hitler that almost brought down the government

Illustration of enemies shaking hands

What makes for a good peace?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Residents of Palermo, Sicily, line the streets to greet the American Sherman tanks after the town had surrendered to the Allies

The battle for Sicily: breaking into Fortress Europe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Women who served in WW2. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton, the great Antarctic explorer of the Heroic Age

A group of BBC staff surround a large piece of broadcasting equipment

BBC at 100The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain's most famous institutions. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hillsborough Disaster floral tributes

A brief history of the Hillsborough disaster and justice campaigner Anne Williams

History's greatest mysteriesWhy did Mao’s chosen successor flee China?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Beatles pictured in 1969

The Beatles: 8 landmark moments that chart the changing face of sixties Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The 1993 film ‘Schindler’s List’. (AF Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Second World War

7 must-see WW2 films, from Schindler’s List to Letters from Iwo Jima

History's greatest mysteriesAgatha Christie disappears. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A model of the so-called ‘Piltdown Man’ and a replica of its skull,

Q&AWho was the Piltdown Man?

Turning points1956: The shock of Suez. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Turning points1916: The long march to modernity. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Claire Foy as the Duchess of Argyll in A Very British Scandal (left); Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (right)

The Argyll divorce: the society scandal that rocked 1960s Britain

Christmas feasts with Annie GrayEpisode 4: WW2 rationing & postwar absurdity. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Apollo 8 crew in a capsule during training

Apollo 8: why NASA's Christmas mission to the Moon was a bright end to a dark year. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thomas Kendrick: MI6 spymaster who helped win WW2. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin. (Getty Images)

First World War

Did a British agent murder Rasputin?

Pearl HarborEpisode 5. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

John Duval Gluck, Jr, 'the Santa Claus man', pictured left, visiting the General Post Office to promote the Santa Claus Association’s benefit show

The con man who saved Christmas. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Yugoslavia: the beginning of the end. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The first controlled, powered and sustained human flight on 17 December 1903 by the Wright Brothers. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Flying into history: the Wright Brothers' Flyer and the world's first flight