20th Century

A c1860 depiction of Wentworth Works steel manufacturer in Sheffield

Why Britain punched above its weight

We asked six leading authors and academics to pick works of fiction that have captured life in Britain. (Image by Getty Images)

6 novels that captured life in Britain

A man attacks the Berlin Wall with a pickaxe on the night of November 9th, 1989 as news spread rapidly that the East German Government would now start granting exit visas to anyone who wanted to go to the West. The announcement was misinterpreted as meaning the border was now open and East German border guards were unable to stop the rush of people to the Wall. Within hours people were smashing sections of the Wall with their own hand tools and these first cracks in the Wall led to the complete opening of the border within days. (Photo by robert wallis/Corbis via Getty Images)

In pictures: remembering the Berlin Wall 30 years on

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Britons. Join Your Country's Army! (Photo by Alfred Leete/ Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)

The death of Kitchener: a World War One mystery . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A fruit and vegetable market, painted by Joachim Beuckelaer.

A brief history of veganism in Britain

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Margaret Thatcher meets personnel during her visit to the Falkland Islands. (Photo by Sven Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)

Britain in the early 80s . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

1st May 1975: Three documents, for and against, published for the referendum on the Common Market

Britain decides: the first European referendum

Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon, in San Francisco during a visit to America, November 1965. (Photo by Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images)

“Cheap men and expensive bottles”: Princess Margaret’s love affairs

Scores of people milled about the entrance to the Stock Exchange on 24 October 1929, as the market went through the greatest shake up in its history. It was a light tremor heralding the earthquake to come. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

The Wall Street Crash: the day the bubble burst

Extinction Rebellion take over Trafalgar Square, London, in protest on 16 October 2019. (Photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

From William Wordsworth to Extinction Rebellion: a history of Britain’s green activists

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30th June 1963: Some of the many hundreds of supporters of the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and the Committee of 100 waiting outside Birch Grove, the country home of British prime minister Harold Macmillan, where he and American president John F Kennedy are having weekend talks. (Photo by Kent Gavin/Keystone/Getty Images)

Peter Hennessy on Britain in transition . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Two women outside a book shop in Leicester Square, London, with paperback copies of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' by D H Lawrence, after a jury at the Old Bailey decided that it was not obscene. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover: how the ‘obscene’ book caused a moral storm

Margaret Thatcher surrounded by British soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Royal Hampshire Regiment, during a surprise visit to the Falkland Islands, January 1983. Britain has

How the Falklands War fired up Britain

Yuri Gagarin before the first space flight, 12 April 1961. (Credit: RIA Novosti)

In pictures: Soviet cosmonauts and the birth of the space age

Billy Fullerton, gang chief of the Glasgow gang the Billy Boys

Who were the real Billy Boys, the Glasgow gang in Peaky Blinders?