20th Century

A US soldier teaching two junior 'rookie' recruits how to clean a gun during the First World War

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about America’s entry and involvement in the First World War

Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth Armstrong-Jones (centre) – the daughter of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon – was born seventh in line to the throne. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Daily Express/Getty Images)

7 royal babies who were once seventh in line to the throne

Nationalist troops escort captured Republican militia during the Spanish Civil War. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The Spanish Civil War: an avoidable tragedy

A young visitor looks at a painting depicting the Amritsar Massacre

Amritsar: day of shame

A French print by the Thierry bothers depicting the appearance of the landscape and inhabitants of the Moon

How to carry off a great hoax

Perkin Warbeck, an imposter and pretender to the English throne, being humiliated in the stocks before his execution in 1499. Warbeck was used by Henry VII’s Yorkist enemies in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. (Getty Images)

Imposters in history: 16 famous con-artists and pretenders

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?

Passengers reading a newspaper while waiting to disembark from the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury, having sailed from Jamaica, taken by an unknown photographer for the Daily Herald newspaper, 21 June 1948.

Do we need to decolonise history? And if so, how?

Prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

5 myths of the Second World War’s Great Escape

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”

A painting of the Amritsar massacre. While Churchill described the killings as

The Amritsar massacre: the British empire’s darkest day

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?

Are we returning to an age of political extremes? (Illustration by Davide Bonazzi for BBC World Histories Magazine)

The big question Are we returning to an age of political extremes?

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

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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.