20th Century

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Mark Atwood Lawrence responds to readers’ questions about the United States’ failure to stem the advance of communism in Vietnam. (Image by Getty Images)

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

Soldiers from the Women's Royal Army Corps

Second World War

A brief guide to VE Day

British prime minister Clement Attlee reading a document in his office, 27 July 1946. (Photo by Haywood Magee/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Clement Attlee: Labour’s postwar leader

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Dr Katrina Moseley explores the surprising story of slimming clubs, touching on female friendship, entrepreneurialism and feminist fury. (Image by Getty Images)

The changing shape of slimming clubs . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Britain's Greatest Prime Minister Podcast Series From HistoryExtra

Who was Britain’s Greatest Prime Minister? Episode 3: Clement Attlee . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Serhii Plokhy discusses the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and reveals just how close the world came to nuclear disaster. (Image by Getty Images)

How close to nuclear war did the Cuban Missile Crisis get? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Historian Timothy Hickman answers listener questions about the ban on booze in 1920s America, from speakeasies and moonshine to Al Capone’s shady dealings. (Image by Getty Images)

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

Festival of Britain official programme. The event was held in 1951 on London's South Bank

The 1951 Festival of Britain: banishing the gloom of postwar Britain

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Harriet Atkinson takes us back to 1951’s Festival of Britain, a celebration of a nation rising from the ashes of war. (Image by Getty Images)

Britain’s great postwar party . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Alcohol is poured away into a New York sewer during the prohibition era, c1920

Quiz Prohibition: how much do you know about the US ban on booze?

Young civil rights activists sit in defiance at a ‘whites only’ lunch counter in Oklahoma City, 1958

Jim Crow in the United States: a brief guide to the racial segregation laws

Happier days: The tsar and his family pose for a portrait in c1910, years before he was swept from power and murdered. Maria, Olga and Tatiana (left to right) are at the back. Alexandra and Nicholas are seated with Alexey at their feet. Anastasia is far right. (Photo by Getty Images)

The last days of the Romanovs: could George V have saved the family?

The Earth above the lunar horizon, seen from Apollo 11's command module before the successful landing (Photo by NASA/Newsmakers)

In their own words: the team behind Apollo 11 describe the 1969 mission to the Moon

Members of the royal family: Prince Louis; Prince George; Prince William, Duke of Cambridge; Princess Charlotte; Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge; Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall; Prince Charles, Prince of Wales; Princess Anne, Princess Royal; and Queen Elizabeth II during the Queen's annual birthday parade on 8 June 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Q&A How did the royals choose 'Windsor'?

British troops guard a wall during the Irish War of Independence, which bears a nationalist message

The Irish Republican Army: a brief guide