Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

An engraving depicts a frost fair on the Thames

Frozen: Britain's Little Ice Age

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector

Royalists, beards and cowardice: are these the strangest taxes in history?

6 lesser-known facts about the Ottoman Empire

Sir Nicholas Winton

Second World War

The 'British Schindler' who saved 669 children from the Nazis

The Windrush generation. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Scandalous Tudor marriages: 7 women who braved royal wrath by marrying for love

Puritans and the Mayflower. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

German prisoners of war

What would you have done? 6 terrible choices people had to make during the Second World War

New York City police watching agents pour liquor into a sewer

Wet vs Dry: how prohibition fractured America

The Auschwitz volunteer. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Ayatollah Khomeini

General ancient history

A brief history of Iran

David Bowie and Twiggy

David Bowie's life in pictures

Edvard Munch's painting 'Love and Pain'

The Vampyre stirs: 200 years of vampire entertainment

"A great social experiment”: a brief guide to prohibition

An illustration of Jeffrey Hudson and Queen Henrietta Maria

The amazing life of Jeffrey Hudson, the queen's dwarf

The long history of Brexit. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The two faces of Robert Mugabe

The filthy Middle Ages?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Setting a trap: East German soldiers construct the Berlin Wall, 13 August 1961. The barrier was an attempt to stop the flood of Germans fleeing from east to west – yet, as scores of audacious escape bids attest, it didn't entirely succeed. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Escape from East Berlin: an audacious bid to tunnel under the Berlin Wall

A curious history of Christmas. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

History Advent Calendar 2019

Advent calendar 2019: 24 facts about Christmas through history

A vintage colour postcard, possibly produced to send Christmas greetings from the frontline, somewhere on the Western Front, during the First World War, c1918. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Christmas10 ways Christmas was celebrated during the First World War

Jumping beans, throwing shoes and weather forecasting: medieval ways to look ahead to the New Year

“Somewhere in between exploitation and empowerment”: James Norton on society osteopath Stephen Ward

The Trial of Christine Keeler. (Photo by BBC)

Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies: the women at the heart of the Profumo Affair

Mandy Rice-Davies (left) and Christine Keeler

Notes on a scandal: revisiting the Profumo Affair. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The birth of the modern world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mixed-race babies born after the Second World War

A portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. (Photo by Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

12 facts about the Stuarts