Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

First World War

What is the origin of the phrase 'to blow smoke up someone's arse'?

Soviet science and feeding Britain at war. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Who was the first ever teenage heartthrob?

Black British history and Charles I’s children. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Italian poet Francesco Petrarch

Q&AHow and when did the medieval period get its name?

Operation Gold Rush with Dan Snow

Reporting from war zones. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A London slum family stood in a street with all their possessions following eviction, c1901. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Life in 19th-century slums: Victorian London’s homes from hell

Roman silver denarius coins AD 72 till 200 and were offered up at the beginning of the 4th century AD, from the Nydan Bog archaeological site. (Photo by Clare Rowan)

From bes to Bitcoin: alternative currencies in the ancient Roman world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Adrian Turner as Poldark. (Photo by BBC Pictures)

Poldark’s Cornwall: the history behind the hit series

The Aberfan disaster and women who made history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A painting depicting the storming of the Tuileries. (Photo By DEA/G DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

Socialite, spy, saviour: Grace Dalrymple Elliott. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Viscountess Nancy Astor on her election campaign in 1919. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

The LibraryWomen pioneers in parliament. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Accidental explosions: gunpowder in Tudor and Stuart London. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Women in politics and Robinson Crusoe. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Did women revolt in Europe?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Medieval Albigensians: Bath’s reincarnated heretics. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Holocaust landscapes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

What are the historical origins of darts?

History on film: London is smothered by a dangerous smog

The 1920s: Roaring or tame?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Emil Zátopek. (Photo by Universal/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

The running revolutionary. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Singer Germaine Lubin in conversation with officer Hans Speidel at the German Embassy in Paris, 1941. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Les Parisiennes: how the women of Paris lived, loved and died in the 1940s. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Cold War and the history of philosophy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Forgotten science: 7 of the strangest scientific theories in history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Photo of pencils

Q&AHow old is the pencil?

The history of... re-enacting battles

The history of the suntan

Mompesson House, which has sinister connections with a ghost known as the Demon Drummer. (Clare Hargreaves/The National Trust)

9 haunted historic houses

Paris’s women at war and the Housewives’ League. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.