Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

The Ashes urn, a cricketing trophy

In pictures: The Ashes through history

A late 19th or early 20th-century painting entitled 'Mother and Child'. As fertility rates fell, sentimental idealisations of mothers and babies developed. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The motherhood revolution: how the great fertility decline affected the lives of women

For our forebears, the secret to a good night's sleep lay in the contents of your gut. (Photo by Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

6 sleeping tips and tricks from history

Stonewall and the fight for gay rights. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A 15th-century map of the world illustrating a Latin edition of Ptolemy's the 'Geography'. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

12 alternative giant leaps for mankind – from carnivorism to Magna Carta

Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark. The BBC television drama is putting Cornwall’s coastline at risk of "over-tourism” as visitors flock to the area to visit the show's scenic filming locations, tourism chiefs have warned. (Photo by BBC/Mammoth Screen/Mike Hogan)

Poldark, Peaky Blinders and 6 other historical TV shows that have tourists flocking to Britain

A medieval European union: why the Hanseatic League still matters

Back on Planet Earth: what world did Neil Armstrong leave behind in 1969?

Ruth Ellis and her friend Desmond Cussen, who supplied the gun with which she shot David Blakely. (Photo by Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)

Ruth Ellis and the hanging that rocked a nation

c1916: British soldiers sitting around a lamp in their trench. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

First World War

10 First World War slang words we still use today

A closer look at the Staffordshire Hoard. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

St Fagans Castle and gardens

A visit to St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The 'Afghan Elvis': the extraordinary life of Ahmad Zahir

Out of the closets and into the streets: the legacy of the Stonewall Riots

How wild was the Wild West?

Victorian freak shows. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, seated from left to right, in Yalta for the 'Big Three' Conference. In February 1945, British diplomats were already joking that it was actually a conference of the ‘Big Two-and-a-Half’. (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

WW2: When Britain stood (not quite) alone

Winston Churchill gives his famous 'V for Victory' sign while addressing crowds from the balcony of City Hall in Sheffield, November 1941. Churchill's "inspirational" wartime speeches "galvanised the country and became part of our national lexicon", says historian Dr Nick Lloyd. (Photo by Capt. Horton/ Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)

Debate: Is British history too fixated with the story of the world wars?

Women in traditional Welsh dress, c1896. (Past Pix/SSPL/Getty Images)

Wales: In search of a history

What did Magna Carta mean to the English in 1215?

How is the image of revolutionary Che Guevara commodified? Alex von Tunzelmann explores. (Photo by Francois ANCELLET/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Che Guevara: face of the revolution

Richard II sails down the Thames to Greenwich to meet the rebels. (Photo by Chronicle/Alamy Stock Photo)

Why did the peasants really revolt?

John Hardyng: Henry V’s secret agent

TravelExplore Nashville, Tennessee: the beating heart of the American south. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Anna WhitelockConfronting slavery’s legacy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The acclaimed English author Charles Dickens. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Charles Dickens and his family home

10 photographs that made history

A painting depicts a 14th-century sea battle

Medieval inspiration: what the fantasy genre owes to the 14th century

Panorama of Machu Picchu

The last days of the Incas

MK Ultra: the secrets of the CIA's mind-control programme