Isaac Newton investigating light

Science and technology

AI: An ancient nightmare?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What was Albert Einstein's involvement in the creation of the atomic bomb?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

OppenheimerIs Nolan perpetuating a historical myth?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Still from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), directed by Steven Spielberg (Photo by Allstar Picture Library Limited/Alamy Stock Photo)

“Nasa has finally been dragged back into the UFO debate”: David Clarke on the history of flying saucers. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A photograph of Albert Einstein looking into the camera

Albert Einstein: facts about his life, death, education and work

Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, seen in 1975, would have been the leading candidate to be the first person to step on the Moon had the Soviets landed before the US (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

What if...The Soviets had landed on the Moon first and won the Space Race?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Historian Simon Schama, 2015 (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)

Simon Schama“Humans are a marvel of ingenuity, yet we seem to exist in this great pond of primitive terror and paranoia”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The city of Hiroshima, Japan, a few days after the first atom bomb is dropped in August 1945. This clearly demonstrated the apocalyptic potential of the new weapon (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Second World War

The Manhattan Project: your guide to the building of the first atomic bomb

Illustration by Hugh Cowling

Artificial intelligence: a modern advance or an ancient nightmare?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jai Singh II (third from left) built astronomical observatories across northern India in the 18th century, incorporating knowledge he’d sourced everywhere from China to Portugal (Photo by Dinodia Photos/Alamy Stock Photo)

Why the scientific revolution was far from just a European phenomenon. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mathematician and Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing played a key role in deciphering the Enigma code (Photo by Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo)

What if...The Enigma code had not been cracked by Alan Turing and Bletchley Park?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Royal Observatory, commissioned by Charles II in 1675, on a hill in Greenwich Park, London (Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Art, culture and science in the Restoration period. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The man who almost discovered the double helix. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Science & religion: a story of war or harmony?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Video podcastPeter Frankopan on humanity’s long relationship with nature. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A composite image showing an astronaut on the moon against a purple sky.

ConspiracyDid NASA fake the Moon landing?

Circulation of the blood, 1628. English physician William Harvey (1578-1657) was the first to correctly describe the mechanism whereby blood is circulated in the body. Diagram showing the existence of valves in veins. From Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus, by William Harvey. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

A medical renaissance?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Victorian visions of the future. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Britain’s harsh winter of 1880–81 depicted as the start of a new ice age, by contemporary cartoonist George du Maurier (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Out of the cold: the slow beginnings of climate change science. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Why we should remember...The pioneering use of ether. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Measurement: an unexpected history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A real and a virtual Tycho Brahe surveys the heavens next to his mural quadrant in the frontispiece to ‘Machines of the New Astronomy’. (Photo by DEA/G.DAGLI ORTI via Getty Images)

A history of science in 10½ objects. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rosalind Franklin as seen in a 1956 photo

Why we should remember…Rosalind Franklin’s pioneering scientific career

Why we should remember…Charles Babbage's Difference Engine

The birth of insulin: a scientific drama. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, at dusk

9 places where British astronomy flourished. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Video games at 50: a cultural history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Domenico Fetti painting illustrating a melancholic woman in the early 17th century

The Anatomy of Melancholy: how Robert Burton helped shape our understanding of the mind. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A young woman sat in front of a mirror applies lipstick, 1967

The price of beauty: the dangerous cosmetics used until the 20th century

Gardens and the scientific revolution. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.