Politics

The original ‘Big Three’ at Livadia Palace in Yalta: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. None of them came away from the summit with everything they had hoped for. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Second World War

Your guide to... The Yalta and Potsdam conferences, 1945

A portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull, 1806. (Photo by IanDagnall Computing/Alamy Stock Photo)

The dark side of Alexander Hamilton

Phyllis Schlafly

The woman who opposed equality with men: Phyllis Schlafly and the real history behind Mrs. America

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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 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

Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France meet (in marquee, top) at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, June 1520. “For all their expressions of friendship,” writes Glenn Richardson, “the two kings spent most of the summit attempting to outshine one another”. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Fields of the Cloth of Gold: the greatest show on earth

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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English admiral Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596), circa 1585. (Photo by Getty Images)

Francis Drake: slave trader . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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A slave in chains expressing the inhumanity of slavery with the words 'Am I not a man and a brother?', 1774. (Photo by Getty Images)

Britain and the slave trade . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Abraham Lincoln (Photo by Library of Congress)

The secret plot to kill Lincoln . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

John Profumo in October 1962

Sex, lies and spies: the real history of the Profumo Affair

Photo of Queen Elizabeth II and members of the Privy Council

Your guide to... the Privy Council

Picture of Luddites destroying machinery

Industrial revolution

Your guide to… The Luddite movement

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Harold Wilson in 1971, after his first period as prime minister. He would take power again in 1974. (Photo by Getty Images)

History hero Jason Watkins chooses Harold Wilson (1916–95) . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.