20th Century

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Huge sun setting over power lines and palm trees in California. (Photo by Getty Images)

California’s century of change . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Listening in: a doctor uses a stethoscope to examine a patient in 1948. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

The birth pains of the NHS: how Britain’s National Health Service was created

A view of Mount Everest

Mystery on Everest: did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit in 1924?

The bikini was showcased to the world for the first time in July 1946. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

8 historical events that happened in July

A girl, with her brother on her back, trudges past a stalled American tank, South Korea, June 1951. (Photo by Alamy)

How we forgot the Korean War

Women load up scrap metal at a major steelworks, 1942. During the Second World War, the government opened hundreds of nurseries to encourage women into work but, as Britain returned to peace, most closed. (Photo by Fred Ramage/Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Who’s holding the baby? How working mothers navigated the 20th century

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c1935: Beatrice Shilling sits astride her Norton motorcycle. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

History hero Cathy Newman chooses Beatrice Shilling (1909–1990) . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Japanese school girls wear protective masks to guard against the influenza outbreak, February 1920. (Photo by Getty Images)

A history of pandemics: from Spanish Flu to Covid-19 . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mel Gibson in a scene from the film 'Braveheart'

Good drama, bad history: 11 historically inaccurate films you need to watch

Pyongyang wreckage, Korean War

The Korean War “created a blood debt that is crucial to understanding North Korean behaviour ever since”

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US Soldiers march North Koreans along a dirt road during the Korean War, 1950–53 (Photo by Getty Images)

Britain and the Korean War . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A mushroom cloud produced by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb during Operation Ivy, an American nuclear test that took place in 1952. (SSPL/Getty Images)

How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world

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Two nannies stop for a chat while walking their charges in a London park, March 1916 (Photo by Getty Images)

Working mothers . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Crowds flock to the beach at Hastings in August 1938. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)

Summer holiday revolution: when were Britons first allowed to take paid holiday?

c1962: Military personnel in a car pass through the US Army's Checkpoint Charlie on the Berlin Wall. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

A brief history of Checkpoint Charlie