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General Modern

A poverty-stricken migrant mother with three young children by Dorothea Lange, colourised by Marina Amaral. (Photo courtesy of Head of Zeus)

History in colour. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Victoria, c1860s. Victoria attended her son's wedding in March 1863 wearing full mourning dress – her husband, Prince Albert, had died some 15 months earlier. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Troublesome royal in-laws through history

A group of skaters on a frozen-over backwater of the River Thames at Abingdon, 1895. (Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

A brief history of climate change warnings

In 1945 there were two million more ‘potential’ households than actual homes, in part exacerbated by the wartime damage to housing stock (Coventry, for example, lost one third of its homes in the Blitz). Here, displaced people in east London wait on the street. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A history of homelessness

What if JFK had lived?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Circus performer Otto Witte, who in 1912 successfully pretended to be the new king of Albania. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

14 weird things that have happened in November through history

JFK prepares to sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. (Picture by Corbis/Getty Images)

Nuclear nightmare: the Cuban missile crisis

Diana, Princess Of Wales, Prince William And Prince Harry visit Thorpe Park amusement park. (Photo by Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)

How to raise a royal... with Tracy Borman

Wreck of Fishing boat, Iceland. (Photo by Dreamstime)

Adventures in Iceland. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Men sealing cases of Rowntree’s Elect Cocoa, York, Yorkshire, 1893. (Photo by Borthwick Institute/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Chocolate and empire: from the land where the cocoa grows

A statue of Robert the Bruce at Stirling Castle in Scotland. The castle "is in many ways like a bottleneck – so much of Scottish and British history passes through it and goes off to its eventual destination,” says Neil Oliver. (Photo by Iain Masterton via Getty Images)

BBC presenter Neil Oliver on his top 5 must-visit places in Britain

Neil Oliver. (Photo by Bill Osment)

Neil Oliver’s history of the British Isles. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The entrance to Bodiam Castle. "If any castle conjures up the ‘romance’ of the mediaeval world, this is it," says Michael Smith. (Photo by Andrew Ray/LOOP IMAGES via Getty Images)

From magnificent ruins to imposing forts: 10 must-visit British castles

Sam Willis and James Daybell. (Photo by David Hampton for BBC History Magazine)

The extraordinary history of ordinary things. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Professor Kathleen Burk and Simon Jenkins discuss Jenkins's new book, 'A Short History of Europe'. (Photo by David Hampton for BBC World Histories magazine)

Simon Jenkins and Kathleen Burk on the history of Europe

A half-hour history of Europe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Ian Hislop (Photo by J.Fernandes/D.Hubbard © Trustees of the British Museum)

Dissent through the centuries. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Historians Joanne Paul, Olivette Otele and June Purvis dissect the results of our recent poll: 100 women who changed the world.

Video: 100 women who changed the world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Brazil's oldest museum was gutted by a fire that destroyed most of the 20 million artefacts it housed. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

Brazil's National Museum fire in context

Vienna's magnificent city hall, built between 1872 and 1883, can be found in the heart of the city. (Picture by Moment/Getty Images)

My favourite place: Vienna, Austria

Historians Sam Willis (left) and James Daybell. "We challenged ourselves to write the histories of things we weren't necessarily even sure had a history," says Willis. (Photo by David Hampton for BBC History Magazine)

Books interview with Sam Willis and James Daybell: "Everything has a history. And we mean absolutely everything". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The LibraryIan Kershaw on the trials of writing modern history

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after the closing bell on 29 September 2008. A record 778 points were wiped off the Dow Jones that day, as the 2008 financial crisis pushed the world's banking system to the edge of collapse. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The credit crunch: "It's a story of hubris followed by a fall"

When we conduct historical research, we encounter terms and concepts that are familiar to us in the present. Yet we should not assume that these concepts possessed the same meaning in the past as they do now, says Dean Blackburn. (Image by Shawshots / Alamy Stock Photo)

5 tips for historical research: from uncovering local history to plotting your family tree

The march for Catalan Independence held in Barcelona, 11 September 2014 (Photo by Jordi Elias Grassot/Alamy)

Scots and Catalans. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dan Jones on the secrets of popular history

Dan Jones on the secrets of popular history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's funniest jokes

Islam’s struggle with modernity podcast

Islam’s struggle with modernity. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

(Photo by Katie Edwards/Alamy Stock Photo)

Do we really live in a less charitable society than 50 years ago?

Coca cola bottles from the 1990s

From Velcro to Viagra: 10 products that were invented by accident