Dockers unloading wine barrels

Social history

When did the practice of funeral rings begin/end and how widespread was it?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

The White Man’s World

BBC History Magazine

Great misconception

Painting depicting medieval nuns. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

17th-century nuns on the run. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Winter defeats scurvy

Mikado Maids

A big day in history: Gilbert and Sullivan unveil 'The Mikado'. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hard labour: a woman tarring and flinting in Oxford Street, central London, 1919. (Getty Images)

The Library“Our Excess Girls": women after the First World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Q&A: Music as a ‘psych-weapon'. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Vicious murder

Chris Patten, the last governor of colonial Hong Kong, is pictured here receiving the Union Jack flag shortly before Hong Kong was returned to China, ending over a century of British rule. (Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

The British empire: 10 big questions. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A photograph of Queen Victoria and her descendants, taken in April 1894 in Coburg, Germany. The photograph shows Queen Victoria's position at the centre of a network of alliances created by strategic marriages, which gave her the name 'the grandmother of Europe'. (Alamy)

A photograph of Queen Victoria and her family: what can it tell us?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Line engraving depicting the burning of Rawlins White, c1555. From a late 18th-century edition of John Foxe's 'The Book of Martyrs'. (Alamy)

The Making of Martyrs. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English medical student Roger Bannister

A history of British sport. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Masters of the Post: The Authorized History of the Royal Mail

Why were people who died by suicide historically buried at crossroads?

An 18th century village in Germany. Strict laws regulated the goods that each social class could buy. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Beware what you buy: the goods German citizens were forbidden to consume. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Not sewing...

King George VI and stories from Africa. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

17th-century Ranter

BBC History Magazine

Identifying the English: A History of Personal Identification 1500–2010

BBC History Magazine

Better and better?

A portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from an early 15th-century manuscript of the poem ‘De Regimine Principum’ by Thomas Hoccleve. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The LibraryChaucer and the idea of Englishness. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Cornish invention

An illustration from ‘A Short History of the English People’ by John Richard Green. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Drowning in Tudor England: why was water so dangerous?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Those meddling bureaucrats...

A c15th-century vellum shows the Squire from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. For Adam Nicolson, the essence of the gentry was “government-through-networking”. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Stories of the gentry. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A postboy drives a mail coach in a contemporary illustration. Soon after their introduction in 1784, coaches were traversing the country at speeds of up to 10mph. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Red Letter Days: 10 milestones in the history of the Post Office. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A woman at a floral tribute to Neville Chamberlain at a florist in Ludgate Circus, London, 1938. In the wake of the Munich agreement, the prime minister was understood to be a hero of women everywhere. (Photo by Harry Todd/Getty Images)

The LibraryGuilty women?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

Theological debate

How far could a person expect to travel in a single day on horseback or in a stagecoach?