Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

David Olusoga on A House Through Time. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rutger Bregman. (Rutger Bregman (Photo by Maartje ter Horst)

Rutger Bregman’s optimistic history of the world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Books interview with Emma Griffin: "Looking at family life reveals a dark side to Victorian economic progress". This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Living on the edge in Victorian Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Surviving the Great Plague. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Painting of an auto-da-fé

Your guide to...the Spanish Inquisition

Elma Brenner on medieval wellbeing: "People in the Middle Ages were absolutely focused on staying healthy"

A French 15th-century covered market

10 things you (probably) didn't know about the Middle Ages

Dissection of human cadaver by physicians

Ask the medieval doctor: 6 ailments and their treatments

Rethinking the Renaissance. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Medieval banquet

What time of the day did medieval people eat?

Why do brides wear white dresses? Plus the history behind 3 more wedding traditions

An illumination depicts medieval women embroidering

Medieval misconceptions: 12 myths about life in the Middle Ages – busted

Clothes infected by the Black Death are burned in medieval Europe, c1340. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Black Death facts: your guide to "the worst catastrophe in recorded history"

A medieval couple being married by a clergyman

Love and marriage in medieval England

Picture of Luddites destroying machinery

Industrial revolution

Your guide to…The Luddite movement

Sally Dixon-SmithMedieval love and marriage. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Britain at War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What was a drunkard's cloak used for? This illustration shows a man wearing the archaic punishment tool designed to punish habitual drinkers. (Photo by Getty Images)

Q&AWhat was a drunkard’s cloak used for?

Miners work hard in cramped conditions at the pit face in Ellington Colliery, Northumberland, 1951 (Photo by Getty Images)

The Northumbrians: from Bede to Geordie Shore. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

VE Day revellers blowing party trumpets

Second World War

In pictures: jubilant VE Day street party celebrations

Marble statue of a young Roman girl

Everything you wanted to know about Roman Britain – but were afraid to ask

View of the Norse Buildings, L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, Newfoundland. (Photo by Alamy)

Medieval globetrotters. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 10th-century silver coin minted in a Danish settlement

The global millennium: how the year AD 1000 was more globalised than we might think

8 May 1945: Crowds celebrate VE Day in London, at the end of World War 2. (Photo by Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"Hooray! The war is ended": 5 people's recollections of VE Day

Expelled Germans leaving Poland's western territories

"The war without an end": what happened in Europe after VE Day?

Victorian family. (Photo by Sean Sexton-Getty images)

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

The rise of spiritualism after WW1

Irish people starving during the Potato Famine

The Corn Laws crisis. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.