Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

Prospecting towns like Dawson boomed during the gold rush.

The dark side of the 19th-century gold rush

c1962: Military personnel in a car pass through the US Army's Checkpoint Charlie on the Berlin Wall. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

A brief history of Checkpoint Charlie

Two lovers rest after a hunt, Codex Manesse

Saturday lecture: Medieval love and marriage. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The ruined monastery walls of Lindisfarne priory on Holy Island, on 27th June 2019, on Lindisfarne Island, Northumberland, England. The monastery of Lindisfarne was founded by Irish monk Saint Aidan, and the priory was founded before the end of 634 and Aidan remained there until his death in 651. The Holy Island of Lindisfarne, also known simply as Holy Island, is an island off the northeast coast of England. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important centre of Celtic and Anglo-saxon Christianity. After the Viking invasions and the Norman conquest of England, a priory was re-established. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images Images)

BlogMedieval(ish) matters #8: Did medieval people care about the time? And did they get bored?

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.

Francis Drake portrait

Francis Drake’s forgotten role in the English slave trade

American spotlight: how today’s protests echo historical outrage. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Violence erupted in New Orleans, and white southerners killed and injured more than 100 freed slaves during a riot against reconstruction plans. (Image by Alamy)

Rebuilding America after the Civil War: what was the Reconstruction era and why did it fail?

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

A police officer uses his baton on a protester in Glasgow, 1919

1919: Britain's red summer

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King

The civil rights movement: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

People flee to boats on the River Thames to escape the Great Fire of London, September 1666.

Coffee, plague and the Great Fire: the pleasures and perils of living in Restoration London

Statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson in Trafalgar Square London

Should we judge historical figures by the morals of today?

(Photo by Michele Falzone via Getty Images)

10 things you (probably) didn't know about ancient Egypt

Michael Wood on statues"These ‘history wars’ over statues are really about something bigger: about different views of the past, and who controls it". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The unexpected Tudors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

From Nelson to Churchill: challenging British heroes with Afua Hirsch. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Abolition in Britain: the link between slavery and the British national identity

An 1826 illustration from 'The Black Man's Lament

David Olusoga"Thousands of Britons opposed abolition – because they owned slaves"

Saturday lecture: Medieval disease and medicine. 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

Wrecked buildings in Los Angeles' South Central district following 1992 riots

The 1992 LA riots

Oliver Cromwell and King Charles I.

The Civil War: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Saturday lecture: Medieval food. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Equestrian portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from the Ellesmere manuscript of his Canterbury Tales (14th century). "The world in which Chaucer moved was very outward-looking," says Marion Turner. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Cosmopolitan Chaucer: the 14th-century poet’s inventive, international life. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An engraving depicting a scene of chaos at Bethlem Royal Hospital

Bethlem Royal Hospital: why did the infamous Bedlam asylum have such a fearsome reputation?

A scene from the Smithfield Decretals depicting a rabbit beheading a man. Rabbits seem to have a strange place in medieval imagery – and are depicted as having strangely violent tendencies. "It’s the sort of thing to give you nightmares," says David Musgrove. (Photo by Album/British Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

BlogMedieval(ish) matters #5: chivalry, medieval killer rabbits and prisoners of war in the 15th century

Medieval punishments, Toulouse, 14th century. (Photo by Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

How bloody was medieval life?

Ramshackle homes in a Newcastle slum, c1880

From riches to rags: David Olusoga reveals how Britain's grand houses descended into Victorian slums

The British home has changed substantially in the past 300 years (Illustration by Ed Crooks)

The evolution of the British home: from the Georgian era to the present day